The making of Cornbread.....

#77
#77
gog1 said:
Can anyone tell me how Pruitt was brought into the Fulmer's mind to hire or even talk to about being HC of the Vols? How did Cornbread make his way into the picture?
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There were a couple of big boosters in love with Pruitt and as far as Fulmer goes, he does own some blame as well.
 
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#78
#78
tnmarktx said:
There were a couple of big boosters in love with Pruitt and as far as Fulmer goes, he does own some blame as well.
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Some people seemed i believe to think that Cornbread would wind up another Johnny Majors:rolleyes:
 
#82
#82
JohnnyJava said:
My belief is that Fulmer is not an innovator. As a follower of trends, he tries to mimic what others were successful doing. In this case Alabama, who until 3 or 4 years ago were winning with stifling defense and a balanced offense that didn't need to take too many chances to win. Since 2015 or so, it seems that wide open offenses have become increasingly difficult to stop for even defenses as talented as Alabama and Georgia. More points are needed. Fulmer chased past performance to seek future yields without any understanding of how the game was changing. Plus, apparently lack of basic intelligence is not a disqualifier when Fulmer is doing the hiring.
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That and he wanted to "learn the way" of recruiting tactics🤣
 
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#83
#83
OrangeTsar said:
Three secrets to good cornbread...1) good old heavy cast iron skillet, well seasoned (Lodge makes the best). 2) use buttermilk instead of sweet milk in the batter and most importantly 3) use bacon drippings or some type of pig based fat instead of vegetable oil. Get that skillet sizzling hot before you pour in the batter too
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Haven't read this whole thread, but this....
and cracklin's.

Cue Oprah: you get some Lipitor, you get some Lipitor, and you get some Lipitor.....
 
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#84
#84
DFWVolFan said:
My wife hates cornbread but decided to make me some and made it out of Jiffy. First, bite I realized it was corn cake not cornbread but trying to be a good husband I ate it. Hope she never does that again.....
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You are a better man than me for eating that stuff and not complaining. Did she use a muffin tin also?
 
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#87
#87
Warning sign #1 was the lifeless team he put out on the field in his first game vs WVU. I’d never seen a team less motivated to play their first game for a new coach. I knew then we were in trouble.
 
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#88
#88
DFWVolFan said:
My wife hates cornbread but decided to make me some and made it out of Jiffy. First, bite I realized it was corn cake not cornbread but trying to be a good husband I ate it. Hope she never does that again.....
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If she thinks that's cornbread, no wonder she hates it. You need to make HER some real cornbread. Maybe she's never had the real stuff and it's not hard to make. I just ask my wife for some. 😁
 
#89
#89
JohnnyJava said:
My belief is that Fulmer is not an innovator. As a follower of trends, he tries to mimic what others were successful doing. In this case Alabama, who until 3 or 4 years ago were winning with stifling defense and a balanced offense that didn't need to take too many chances to win. Since 2015 or so, it seems that wide open offenses have become increasingly difficult to stop for even defenses as talented as Alabama and Georgia. More points are needed. Fulmer chased past performance to seek future yields without any understanding of how the game was changing. Plus, apparently lack of basic intelligence is not a disqualifier when Fulmer is doing the hiring.
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Agreed. And Pruitt impressed Phil with the list of Assistant coaches that Pruitt said he could bring to Knoxville.

Phil thought Pruitt could be Phil 2.0, twenty-five years later. A Coordinator hired as Head Coach, bringing good Assistants. He thought Pruitt would recruit well. These two guys grew up just over an hour apart, and I guess Phil overlooked Pruitt’s “I done this..” and “We done that..”, or thought Pruitt would polish his speech when necessary.
 
#90
#90
gog1 said:
Can anyone tell me how Pruitt was brought into the Fulmer's mind to hire or even talk to about being HC of the Vols? How did Cornbread make his way into the picture?
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Well it's really a long road on how we got to Pruitt. For one, Butch Jones had us on the brink of being back. The East was down, recruiting well, and back in Top 25. We completely mangled the season where we should have worst case been Orange Bowl bound. The following year is a complete disaster and provides us with the worst season in program history at the time. Butch is fired.

Then, the Schiano situation. Granted, there were some concerns with him given past history at Penn St and Tampa. As far as coaching record in college, very legit candidate though. Concerns would have been competing in the south and being a northern rooted guy.

Then, Brohm from Purdue is a candidate or not a candidate. Nobody really knows. He was coming off a good run at Western KY and a solid first year at Purdue. Hot candidate at the time but falls through.

Then, we scare off Dave Doeren. The very definition of a middle of the road candidate, but given where we are in the national landscape, it's a reasonable hire.

Then, Mike Leach. Wild card candidate but exciting for the fans. Deal is done but we fire the AD and bungle that mess yet again.

Then, Fulmer is hired. We've ran through basically the whole coaching board at this time. We're down to Assistants Pruitt and Leach more than likely. I think all of us fans favored Pruitt given he'd been at FSU, Bama, and UGA.

Bright side, I think we finally settled in on a relatively safe hire given the situation. It's almost incredible how well we still recruit given what we've done to the program over the last decade plus. We've had times with Lane, Dooley, Butch, and Pruitt in the Top 25. You can still win here at UT and possibly even win big. The place can recruit Top 10. We've just never hired a coach with a track record of success. Lane probably could've won big here. Dooley was a terrible hire. Butch was solid and showed some signs but I think his downfall is personality and program building. Pruitt couldn't handle the CEO parts of the job.

Worst case (given we come out with minimal sanctions), I think Heup can get us back to the 8-4 world with his track record of offense and possibly just not being his own worst enemy. Danny isn't wrong about the negativity killing us (see above) but at the end of the day, we're a top ten fan base with top ten facilities. You can win here at UT and win big.
 
#91
#91
I think it’s quite obvious Fulmer was trying to mimic the success Georgia has had with Kirby.

I honestly don’t know that I think Kirby is even a much better coach than Pruitt, Kirby just knows how to cheat better.
 
#92
#92
Frozevol said:
The original Wrangler Grill on Northshore used to make the best hoe cakes I’ve ever had. These look like regular pancakes.
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+1 for calling them hoe cakes. That's what we always called them, too.
 
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#93
#93
gog1 said:
Can anyone tell me how Pruitt was brought into the Fulmer's mind to hire or even talk to about being HC of the Vols? How did Cornbread make his way into the picture?
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Did you forget the whole Curry and Schiano thing? The whole search was a disaster to begin with, then Vol Twitter got involved. No self respecting coach would take the job, and Curry offered several. When Fulmer managed to talk himself in to "save the day" he had no options but a coordinator or another "up and comer."

How quickly we forget.
 
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#94
#94
JRich said:
Did you forget the whole Curry and Schiano thing? The whole search was a disaster to begin with, then Vol Twitter got involved. No self respecting coach would take the job, and Curry offered several. When Fulmer managed to talk himself in to "save the day" he had no options but a coordinator or another "up and comer."

How quickly we forget.
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I think Fulmer would have had trouble finding a quality, established coach to work for him regardless.
 
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#95
#95
hog88 said:
I think Fulmer would have had trouble finding a quality, established coach to work for him regardless.
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I can see that, and personally agree, but you are speculating. Speculation can go both ways. If Pruitt was winning championships, everyone would be singing a different tune about both of them. The whole situation was a giant gift that fell in Fulmer's lap, but even if it was White who followed Curry, he could only hire a coordinator or an up and comer, the same situation they were in this past winter, except now with impending NCAA sanctions.
 
#97
#97
JRich said:
Did you forget the whole Curry and Schiano thing? The whole search was a disaster to begin with, then Vol Twitter got involved. No self respecting coach would take the job, and Curry offered several. When Fulmer managed to talk himself in to "save the day" he had no options but a coordinator or another "up and comer."

How quickly we forget.
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Scary thought is that if JG had at least performed a bit better we would probably still be hobbled with Pruitt yet today. If the last season hadn’t stunk so incredibly, you can bet that the admin would have let Phil sweet talk them into another year for Pruitt using Covid as an excuse. It eventually took revelations of CHEATING to force their hand for crying out loud. The situation on the hill was septic.
 
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#98
#98
JRich said:
I can see that, and personally agree, but you are speculating. Speculation can go both ways. If Pruitt was winning championships, everyone would be singing a different tune about both of them. The whole situation was a giant gift that fell in Fulmer's lap, but even if it was White who followed Curry, he could only hire a coordinator or an up and comer, the same situation they were in this past winter, except now with impending NCAA sanctions.
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No doubt, forget championships if Pruitt could have won 7 games this past season there would be people talking about building a monument to Fulmer and Pruitt. I think most any experienced AD would have handled the whole hiring Butch's replacement better than Currie/CPF. We were sitting in a pretty good position at that point.
 
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#100
#100
GoodmanVol said:
Pruitt was “best available” who would take the job. He was a successful DC and part of the Saban coaching tree. He’d also coached under Richt who had some success at Georgia. Nobody could have predicted his ineptness at being a HC. He had the right resume.
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Unfortunately Gomer Gump was dumber than an empty McDonald's bag.
 
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