Theory For Recruiting Problems

#76
#76
Tennessee should never have problems recruiting football talent.

Our problems have been coaching, development, and culture.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NEO
#77
#77
LouderVol said:
No he was lazy.

I knew several scholarship players that said the same thing. Phil didnt interact with the team much, if you werent a star you were lucky he knew your name. What you saw on the sideline with his arms crossed just watching was what he did on the practice field. Cant imagine he did all that much more in recruiting.

Remember he also let the chief get away with not really recruiting either.

Sorry to maybe burst your bubble but Phil was straight up phoning it in there at the end.
Click to expand...


How many times were you at practices?

How many times did you observe him around the team in the football complex? at Gibbs Hall? In the cafeteria??

Chief like Cut recruited certain players but neither were on the road recruiting a lot. They would recruit when players arrived on campus as most coordinators do. How many times were you on campus when they were recruiting?

Repeating what someone may have told you does not ensure its accuracy. Personal experience would give you more credence.

I love reading these type threads where people discuss all these past happenings from 15-20 years ago based on what they have "heard" or "internet postings". They speak like they are talking "facts".

my rant for now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jarnol32, swampfoxfan, Remy and 1 other person
#78
#78
GoodlettsvilleVol said:
It is my strong opinion we have been falling short in our recruiting classes for some time now. This baffles me since, with our nice facilities, we should be having consistent top 5/10 recruit groups.

We were doing quite well in Fulmer's first years. Phil was a recruiting machine. Put him in a recruits living room with mom, dad, uncle's, etc. and the man would shine. He got more than his share of top recruits then the bottom fell out. What happenned?

I've heard more than a few posters say Phil got lazy but not one of those knows that for a fact. They're just looking for someone to blame.

Anyway, here is my theory for the downturn:

Historically Vols have made a living cherry picking top players from, among others, the eight states that abut our borders. We've all but owned the Carolinas. Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi and the like. And we could go into Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and others with great success.

What changed? As a group those state's colleges have improved their own football programs giving their star recruits more reason to stay instate. Hence, it's more difficult to harvest their prime players.

To me Fulmer didn't get lazy. He put forth the same effort he always did. This trend began to occur during his tenure and effected him.

Now, I am certainly not saying that group of programs in those state's became stellar but collectively they got better which appealed to their recruits.

The record shows that recruiting for UT has dropped and has been a challenge ever since.

It bothers me that we can't recruit with the Alabama's, Georgia's, and the Ohio State's.

JMHO
Click to expand...
Have they gotten better or have we gotten worse? Your point about those other schools getting better sure isn’t affecting Alabamas recruiting.
 
#79
#79
Interesting theory. It’s got to be a combination right? No doubt LSU and a few other programs ascended, which no doubt elevated their potential recruiting pool making it tougher on us. Same with Bama, UGA, etc.

At the same time, as the BCS era progressed the SEC saw an influx of some really elite coaches along with athletic departments that were fully invested in football success.

Who knows how hard Fulmer was really grinding towards the end of his tenure, but complacency is a natural human condition with many once a certain level of success has been reached….that might have played a part

I feel like television distribution and cable bundles hurt too. At one point in time 20 years ago, very few programs got national TV spots, most were regional with many not on TV at all. Right now an absolute stud out of South Carolina can go just about anywhere and be on national TV……20 yrs ago he’d have too go to a big time program for that type of exposure

I don’t know that Fulmer lost “it”, I think he was an old school coach that ran into the start of a new landscape in college football. And when we replaced him I don’t think outlet admin realized how the landscape was changing and how you can’t simply recruit and win on name alone anymore
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rickyvol77
#80
#80
If I was a highly touted recruit, I’d still go to Tennessee regardless what we’ve been through.

The NFL will find you regardless what school you play for so the whole “UF, Bama, LSU, Georgia puts players in the NFL every year” is a tired lame argument.

If you can play, you can play.
 
  • Like
Reactions: igotworms and ptcarter
#81
#81
Have two positive seasons in a row. A bowl game this year and 8 or 9 wins next year with no blowouts. Recruiting will good players will become easier.
 
#83
#83
LWSVOL said:
How many times were you at practices?

How many times did you observe him around the team in the football complex? at Gibbs Hall? In the cafeteria??
Click to expand...
Getting off on a real tangent here. This triggered a warm memory. I worked as a waiter/dish washer in Gibbs for 3 years - 76-79 or thereabouts. These were the Majors years. Interesting to see the traffic that came through there. Got some good memories - one was that when Johnny Majors and his buddies went fishing, he'd stop by there and let the cooks clean his fish.. That always cracked me up, especially because when I went fishing with my Dad, he made us clean every fish. I got so sick of cleaning fish, I don't fish now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FïreBall and LittleVol
#87
#87
butchna said:
1. Randy Sanders aced a test under fire in our NC game and was always the heir apparent to Cut. No issue with his promotion and retention…just with the lack of urgency when the regression began. Ainge was never a basketball prospect. He played the sport in high school…so did Peyton. It was a thing. His uncle was a salty teammate of Larry Bird…that’s it. Fulmer had TWO future college standout QBs all but signed as late as his last signing class. He had no issue landing signalcallers.

2. Fulmer recruited damn good offensive players. If Spurrier had landed them, he would’ve had more than one NC. Simply a case of being outcoached.
Click to expand...
Yep, we played well in that game. However, I wonder how much of the Offensive game plan was put in before Cut left .
 
  • Like
Reactions: jackieaprilesr
#90
#90
For me it's simple. In the 90s most border state schools sucked. The Carolinas, virginia, Kentucky, missouri, and others sucked pretty bad. Arky, bama and Georgia were not great.
Now its way more competitive and Tennessee hasnt played well for a while.
Teams like Georgia, bama, clemson are really good with established head coaches.
Many others in these states have become competitive.
 
#91
#91
MinisterofDef#92 said:
One key factor in my mind is the rise of Clemson...they are getting many of the players we used to sign from GA and the Carolinas especially.
Click to expand...

It is either one way or the other: Tennessee falls because Clemson rises, or Clemson rises because Tennessee falls. We could debate it back and forth all day long, but there does seem to be a strong argument that Clemson has reaped benefits from Tennessee's ineptness.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Orange12, MinisterofDef#92, ptcarter and 1 other person
#92
#92
  • Like
Reactions: GoodlettsvilleVol
#93
#93
I will add that I don't know details about an actual scholarship offer. Just the whole Phil never recruited him part. He did come down. He did offer high praise telling Patrick he could play anywhere. Perhaps he was banking on having Patrick as a fallback plan who knows.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LittleVol
#94
#94
The In-State failures alone made a huge difference. Having Randall Cobb with Denarius Moore at WR would have been huge for us.

Having Jaylen Ramsey and Von Bell team up with Cameron Sutton and our pass rush of Vereen and Barnett would have been dangerous!

Tee Higgins wasn't that great of a loss when you consider Jauan Jennings played like a man possesed.

And Patrick Willis would have had to fend of a good Jason Mitchell and Kevin Simon...
2006 would have been his go-time

Still...
 
  • Like
Reactions: igotworms
#95
#95
vegasvolfan said:
I believe Fulmer was recruiting well. We fired him when he made a tough coaching change without the players to fit the style of offense he was running. Chavis on the other hand did not change with the times. Regardless, we should never have let Fulmer go. He won something like 14 of 16 8+ win seasons. We have seen that twice since then and we ran that guy out of town trying to get anywhere near where Fulmer was for most of his career.
Click to expand...
Saban was staunchly against the spread. He changed with no problem. Won another National Championship right after changing. Other programs changed and were successful.

Fulmerhad two losing seasons in four years! Enough said about him!
 
  • Like
Reactions: igotworms
#96
#96
This thread is rehashing what most already know. Crazy that we are analyzing the ineptness of Fulmer ,Dooley, Jones and Pruitt ..maybe with a little Kiffin thrown in for good measure. Winning purges out these conversations. Do you think the Bama message boards rehash Shula, Dubose, Francionie and Price? Those names have long been buried in Tuscaloosa. But for those too young to remember; Bama had some miserable years before Saban. I”d love to see Tennessee start kicking some ass again and us quit trying to lay blame on why we are where we are. It CAN happen. Just. Have a steep hill to climb.
 
  • Like
Reactions: swampfoxfan
#97
#97
Iv spent several days with Coach Fulmer, I heard some amazing recruiting stories from him. In the 90s nobody recruited harder than he did
 
#99
#99
jcvols24 said:
And I'm telling you that is a lie concocted for storytelling purposes.
Click to expand...

giphy.gif


Yea, I don't think Willis is going to lie about his recruitment for years afterwards. Maybe you're mistaking a coach appearance for Tennessee actually recruiting him. Maybe they thought an appearance was enough to string him along as a last resort or something, but it seems pretty obvious if Tennessee put any effort into recruiting him, he would have been playing for us.

Not sure what Willis has to gain by lying about it.
 
#100
#100
BigOrangeMojo said:
Players want to play for big-time programs that win and develop players for the NFL.

Tennessee hired Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Jeremy Pruitt.

See the disconnect?
Click to expand...
the lack of elite commits tells us how recruits view our latest hire, whether or not anyone wants to acknowledge it. he's going to have to overachieve with what he has this season or he will never get the kind of players he needs to win here.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top