The Athletic - “The Worst Coaching Search Ever?”

In my opinion, the sh7tsh0w Fulmer orchestrated to climb back into the UT money trough and show us how ill equipped he was as an AD cost him the respect of the fan base, the current administration, the current AD, the college football media, and I would suspect many well healed boosters, particularly once the million dollar report gets sunshined and Tennessee takes it in the chops with Fulmer's pin head hire in front of the NCAA infractions committee.

The shine and glory of 1998 wore off with the 2001 SEC Championship collapse, the lazy recruiting effort for the next 7 years, the losing conference records in 2005 and 2008 and the constant meddling in the program, the struggle for relevance after he was terminated ("equity in the program"), never giving the program a fresh start while he continued to work the system for a position and cash, never coached after 2008, never drew a paycheck in athletics after 1980 except at Tennessee, every other program, saw what was really there,

The program now has a Fulmer free fresh start for the first time in decades, White is probably here for 3 or 4 seasons, let us learn from and be reminded of the misery and selfishness of the past, such that we are not condemned to live it again

Let's hope he is here much longer than 3 or 4. I hope more like 10 or 11. By then, a few of those who have mucked things up will be buried in very nice coffins. And hopefully the ones with common sense will live long and prosper.
 
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Unlike Phil, Johnny would never want to see the program suffer like it did in 2020 because he truly loved the university.

No he would not. Johnny might have been living with an unfortunate addiction to whatever his beverages of choice were, but that is much better than Phil's addiction to his own BS.
 
Not on his own. There are alot of ways to look at it. And depending on who you talk to, and how you feel about them, it is not all black and white. There is every shade of gray in between. A whole lot of moving parts, and people doing what they thought was right. I have called it akin to "Game of Thrones". And it pretty much was, just with fewer deaths, and no swords or dragons.

Way I see Fulmer, I gotta thank the guy. He brought us the only national championship I got to see with my own eyes. However, had he done a few things better in the years after that? He could have contended for more. And he damn well should have, had he truly had the programs best interests as his goal. Instead, he wanted what he thought was what was best for the program. And he and his buddies were half of the problem. The other half was people who were too impressed with their monetary contributions, or too afraid to face them down. Money talks, and people listen to it. Even when you know the guys throwing it are most likely full of crap.

I hope to God, as to people overseeing and running the program, that they are now actually the adults in the room. And not a bunch of clowns. If you want to be a clown, wear the makeup and funny shoes. Make kids laugh. What they have done over the past few years? Not funny.


Just my guess, but the coach that cited Fulmer's meddling? My money is on Gundy.

He’s a snake. He stabbed Majors in the back, he stabbed Currie, and he benefitted from both. Hell, even the move to hire Steele with no head coach in place was theft from the university to pad his buddy’s bank account.

He won a NC because he took an elite program from Majors. Then he eroded it because he mismanaged it and couldn’t hire competent assistants after the ones Majors had left him were gone. I think he feared hiring someone too good and too unfamiliar as OC because they might do to him what he did to Majors.

A lot of coaches could have taken what Majors built and won more than one NC. Certainly more than 2 SEC titles. Hell, Cutcliffe is the only reason he won anything. Probably should’ve hired him to replace Majors.
 
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I'm not convinced he did anything to hurt the University intentionally. With the money and ego associated at this level people often think they can do better than whoever is actually making the decisions. They act out of a perverted sense of trying to "save" the program and don't realize they are doing the opposite.

Currie was a disaster and would have done as much harm as Fulmer did. Getting to the point where those were our two options is the actual problem in my mind. I truly believe Danny White is the right person for the AD and we are already seeing a vast improvement on the field. We should expect that UT athletics as a whole continue to thrive under White's leadership.

Finally, there isn't just hope but progress..... Thank God and GBO!
The only reason Currie was hired was because the fan base was so adamant about having someone with “Tennessee roots”. It’s funny the fan base was actually talking about getting Blackburn lol
 
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The only reason Currie was hired was because the fan base was so adamant about having someone with “Tennessee roots”. It’s funny the fan base was actually talking about getting Blackburn lol
You do wonder how much different this would have been had we been able to get Blackburn. I certainly don't know but couldn't have been worse!
 
Fulmer wanted to stick it to the people that fired him. His whole stint as AD was to prove his Fulmerball would have kept working.


Well I'm glad you can read minds.

It's clear he didn't like the AD and wanted him out of the way.

I'm also sure he bleeds orange and wants UT to succeed.

Dislike him all you want, but he did a lot for UT.
 
He was directly asked if he was going to take the Tennessee job as was reported and his response was "let's just say, where there's smoke there's fire." Apparently it was torpedoed over buyout money supposedly. But I suspect it was Fulmer and his wealthy enablers.

Wow, you blame everything on Fulmer. Are you one of "Johhny's boys"? Whatever else Fulmer did, he didn't take a top five team that had beaten Florida and Georgia in a year both were good, and then lose to a winless Arkansas team at home.

I for one and glad that ole Johnny finally got kicked to the curb, and there is no doubt Fulmer >>> Majors. Thank God for that.

PS. Fulmer might be the one crapping in your front yard. Trust me, that's not dog ****, it's Fulmer. Why not? You blame everything else on him.
 
We have six national championships.

I’m sure if you’re the age of 35 then yes you’ll never forget what Fulmer did 95-99, but for a 28 year old fan I’ll never forgive Fulmer for what he has done to the program as a coach and AD.
6 we claim. 1940 and 1951 we lost our bowl game, so that's not much of a championship in the modern sense of the word. 1967 is embarrassing that we try to claim that one. 1938, 1950 and 1998 are all very solid claims though.
 
Fulmer is and has always been about Fulmer, his hubris was his and UTs undoing.

And yet he did win a natty, so he has that going on.

I have to ask, why are you Hog88? Are you an Arkansas fan? If not, why on Earth call yourself a hog?
 

So are you saying Fulmer intentionally intended to hurt UT by being the AD?

Which take is more laughable?
 
You don't think that Tennessee's losses to Arkansas and South Carolina in 1992 might have had something to do with the turmoil that was swirling within the program because Fulmer was actively attempting to take down Majors? If the Fulmer takeover was everything it was alleged to have been, it would have been toxic inside the program by that point.

Lol! no, it was all Johhny boy. I still recall him beating bammer in 1985, then turning around and the very next week tying a putrid Georgia Tech team 6-6 in Neyland. The man never had any consistency.
 
Lol! no, it was all Johhny boy. I still recall him beating bammer in 1985, then turning around and the very next week tying a putrid Georgia Tech team 6-6 in Neyland. The man never had any consistency.
Tony Robinson factor gets a pass from me…and that Georgia Tech team wasn’t “putrid”. Went 9-2-1 and won their bowl game. So 10-2-1 and ranked…pretty comparable to ours.
 
Wow, you blame everything on Fulmer. Are you one of "Johhny's boys"? Whatever else Fulmer did, he didn't take a top five team that had beaten Florida and Georgia in a year both were good, and then lose to a winless Arkansas team at home.

I for one and glad that ole Johnny finally got kicked to the curb, and there is no doubt Fulmer >>> Majors. Thank God for that.

PS. Fulmer might be the one crapping in your front yard. Trust me, that's not dog ****, it's Fulmer. Why not? You blame everything else on him.

You're insane. Johnny could coach circles around Fulmer. He rebuilt programs. He won the national title and he won more SEC titles than Phil. He also hired a capable staff and never tanked the program like Phil. He certainly didn't meddle in the coaching search, take it over, have a hand in tanking the program and major NCAA violations and take a golden retirement parachute.
 
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6 we claim. 1940 and 1951 we lost our bowl game, so that's not much of a championship in the modern sense of the word. 1967 is embarrassing that we try to claim that one. 1938, 1950 and 1998 are all very solid claims though.

Bowl games didn't count at all then. After the 1938 season "Orange Brawl" with Oklahoma injured several of our players Neyland decided he was going to basically mail bowl games in at that point and treat them as what they were, exhibitions that had no bearing on the season. You have to remember, this was before the jet age too. Tennessee traveled for a week on a train to reach Southern California for the 1940 Rose Bowl. USC traveled across town. That's why bowls didn't count and the final poll was released based only on the regular season.
 
Well I'm glad you can read minds.

It's clear he didn't like the AD and wanted him out of the way.

I'm also sure he bleeds orange and wants UT to succeed.

Dislike him all you want, but he did a lot for UT.
He didn't do nearly as much for UT as they did for him
 
Bowl games didn't count at all then. After the 1938 season "Orange Brawl" with Oklahoma injured several of our players Neyland decided he was going to basically mail bowl games in at that point and treat them as what they were, exhibitions that had no bearing on the season. You have to remember, this was before the jet age too. Tennessee traveled for a week on a train to reach Southern California for the 1940 Rose Bowl. USC traveled across town. That's why bowls didn't count and the final poll was released based only on the regular season.
They counted, they're part of the all-time won/loss records. Let's be honest, we don't want to count them those years because we lost them. Truthfully, we probably shouldn't count anything from the segregated era, it's no more the game of football we have today than soccer is
 
They counted, they're part of the all-time won/loss records. Let's be honest, we don't want to count them those years because we lost them. Truthfully, we probably shouldn't count anything from the segregated era, it's no more the game of football we have today than soccer is

No, they didn't count towards rankings and polls. They were vacation/exhibition games. That's how Neyland treated them after the injuries from the 1939 Orange Bowl. They were the college equivalent of NFL preseason games or the pro bowl.
 
No, they didn't count towards rankings and polls. They were vacation/exhibition games. That's how Neyland treated them after the injuries from the 1939 Orange Bowl. They were the college equivalent of NFL preseason games or the pro bowl.
They are part of team's all time win/loss records. They count.
 
You're insane. Johnny could coach circles around Fulmer. He rebuilt programs. He won the national title and he won more SEC titles than Phil. He also hired a capable staff and never tanked the program like Phil. He certainly didn't meddle in the coaching search, take it over, have a hand in tanking the program and major NCAA violations and take a golden retirement parachute.

LOL! He lost to North Texas State in Neyland. He lost to Arkansas with a team ranked in the top 5, when Arkansas was winless and had lost to THE CITIDEL on their home field! Don't get me started on Majors, he constantly underachieved.

Capable staff....Johnny never got along with his staff. Constantly blamed them for his problems, ran them off, fired them. It's one of the reasons he was let go, is he couldn't get along with anyone.

I do agree that Fulmer's reign as AD was not successful, I don't see how that's even a talking point.
 
LOL! He lost to North Texas State in Neyland. He lost to Arkansas with a team ranked in the top 5, when Arkansas was winless and had lost to THE CITIDEL on their home field! Don't get me started on Majors, he constantly underachieved.

Capable staff....Johnny never got along with his staff. Constantly blamed them for his problems, ran them off, fired them. It's one of the reasons he was let go, is he couldn't get along with anyone.

I do agree that Fulmer's reign as AD was not successful, I don't see how that's even a talking point.
Johnny didn't run Walt Harris off. He didn't run Fulmer off. He didn't run Kippy off. He didn't run Cutcliffe off. Majors actually has a pretty extensive coaching tree. Fulmer, not much of one at all

And yes, he was a better football coach. Far more knowledgeable about all aspects of the game
 
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Johnny didn't run Walt Harris off. He didn't run Fulmer off. He didn't run Kippy off. He didn't run Cutcliffe off. Majors actually has a pretty extensive coaching tree. Fulmer, not much of one at all

And yes, he was a better football coach. Far more knowledgeable about all aspects of the game

But he never could be consistent.
 
Fulmer was a bad AD, good coach. Won us a natty and if nothing else as an AD, he did what he had to do to keep Rick Barnes. So there’s his two big accomplishments. Time to move on.
 
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Who is to say that Johnny would have not won a NC in the next several years? He had the recruiting level at the top at the time and had won 3 SEC championships in his last 6 years. The program was a national icon at the time. Johnny was never one to settle for where we were at the time and kept pushing people, especially coaches, to improve. To the point that he had a lot of turnover. But he kept striving for the top.

You could say that Johnny had issues with Bama, but no more than Fulmer with Florida.

If Johnny hadn’t been booted he wins at least one natty IMO. Those teams had too much talent to not win.
 
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