I respectfully disagree with you.
We fired a HOF coach who had gotten lazy a few years too late after winning a National Championship.
Fulmer was not the reason we had a good team, it was Cutcliffe. Look at what happened to the team when he got the head job at Ols Miss.
The team went down and the got better when he came back and then went down again when he took the Duke job.
In my opinion the two pivotal things that have lead to where we are is that Fulmer did not retire and had over the job to Cutcliffe after the 98 season and then Kiffin bolting after one season.
If either of those things were different I think that we would be a far better place at this time.
Retire the year after he won a Natty while he was still the best recruiter in the business in his prime? That's an extreme to me and nobody is gonna do that.
I used to be an adamant Fulmer supporter. His tenure as AD and the idea that pound the rock was gonna work in the modern game was proof to me of his refusal to adapt.
I don't hate Fulmer like some, never will. That doesn't make sense to me. Did he get lazy on the trail in the end? Yes. More importantly did he refuse/fail to adapt as the game changed? Yes.
CPF had his strengths and weaknesses. Chavis was still an elite DC and proved to be for awhile more. Our defensive staff was great. Phil needed 2 things.
1. A stronger AD or some form of peer like he had in Dickey. Even MJ had a coach.
2. A great OC he could trust to hand-off the offense to like he did with Cut and the D with Chavis.
CPF was a CEO, program manager and elite recruiter when he wanted to be. If Hamilton had given hime a blank paycheck and said "go hire the best OC in America" we wouldn't be in this mess today. We had the no.3 class in America with Taj Boyd and Drew Petty coming as QB's. We were 2 classes away from being back to competing at a championship level.
To me, the fall was primarily due to Mike Hamilton.
1. He undermined Fulmer and was cheap.
2. He was weak and gave up power to the academic side and booster. Look what that has done.
3. He could have had any coach in America almost and he chose a 31yr old Kiffin.
4. Kiffin bolting and then Hamilton and the boosters panicked into the Dooley hire. At this point you've burned every bridge in America because the coaching fraternity felt Phil was disrespected and you've proven to be an inept administration.
But history doesn't matter. Is what it is. Today, we still have a program that could compete with anyone. There are more haves now due to TV $$ but programs like TN still have the intangibles others do not. But our current administration is still focused on the wrong things and they will sacrifice any and everything that has made TN what it is inorder to monetize it.