TN's Decades of Failures Explained

[unfrozencvmanvol]

Tennessee in a world where almost every SEC program takes football seriously isn't a great job. Phil Fulmer held the line above where it seems another coach could. We are always going to be staring down better talent when we play UGA, Bama and Florida. Ultimately Fulmer was keeping us competitive with a chance to win the division once every 3 to 4 years, basically the boom or bust Auburn strategy. So far that has been the best anyone else has come up with. That is the reality. Fulmer didn't get complacent or lose it. UGA quit sucking at football, Bama quit getting caught cheating. That is what changed. No other coach has been able to recruit nationally, especially the Carolinas at the level needed to keep Tennessee competitive that Fulmer did. Having a hall of fame coach offer you a scholarship still had cache. His firing left a vacuum that eventually Clemson has filled. Those National Championship teams in Clemson could have been in slightly lighter shade of orange.

This +1000.

 

[JoAllan]

No one can do anything about the past. Pruitt sucks now......this is the problem.....right now.

 

[unfrozencvmanvol]

IMO, we underestimate how bad South Carolina, Clemson, and Georgia all were during the Fulmer run. This allowed us to clean up in recruiting in those states. Once they hired decent coaches, they all built walls (and made Mexico pay for them) around their state and our recruiting hasn't been as steadily effective since. All jmo, so tifwiw.

It was a perfect storm in the 90's, Vince Dooley retired in 88, Richt didn't arrive until 2001, Georgia was wide open to recruiting during that time and we were profiting from over a decade of stability and improvement under Majors when we hit our stride.

 

[peerless98]

Correct, that is what so many can’t seem to grasp. Fulmer’s worst years were better than this crap

Yep, we fired him half way through the season following a trip to the SECCG the season prior. The big dogs saw a shiny object in Kiffin and went after him. Then they passed it off like it was a coaching search. All that glitters is not gold!

 

[GVol1966]

1) Fulmer. Great coach, great guy but he was retained too long. The SEC and good teams clearly passed him by. (To the deniers- his record his last 6 years) Kiffin inherited an empty cupboard.
2) Kiffin. The right idea but a bad decision who napalmed the program. Terrible decision not putting in a contractual safe guard to leave after only one year.
3) Brown. Hindsight has proven keeping him for a year as interim coach would have been advantageous and probably program saving.
4) Dooley. Maybe to worst hire ever. A loser from LA Tech. Did nothing for 3 years- recruiting was a joke. He solidified our culture of losing.
5) Jones. Another awful hire who wasn't nearly big enough for the job. Could not analyze or develop talent.
6) Pruitt. Year 3- are we improving? Good coordinator. Knows the coference and game, but is he smart enough to be a CEO?

What's a commonality they all have besides losing to our rivals? It's our fundamental problem- ineffective leadership above them at the highest levels. How many visionless and unprepared ADs have we had? More importantly, how many clueless presidents and chancellors have we had? And above them is the BODs. There's our problem. Until they want stop making politically correct decisions (ie Davenport) and understand football's economic AND academic impact (ie Alabama) our football program will be on loop.

1: No, great coaches don’t get passed by
2:Bad idea: passed on Gary Paterson to hire him. Patterson would still be here and the program solid.
4-5 disasters
6: not looking Good

“Until they want stop making politically correct decisions (ie Davenport) and understand football's economic AND academic impact (ie Alabama) our football program will be on loop.”
100% correct

 

[mpfvol]

Dude.

Fulmer's last six years: 49-27. That's a .645 win rate. Two SEC East titles. Three different 10-win seasons, and another with 9 wins. Here, I'll bold the parts you seem to be missing:

• 2003 -- 10-3 (6-2 in SEC)
• 2004 -- 10-3 (7-1 in SEC) -- SEC-East champ -- Cotton Bowl victor (over #22 A&M)
• 2005 -- 5-6 (3-5 in SEC)
• 2006 -- 9-4 (5-3 in SEC)
• 2007 -- 10-4 (6-2 in SEC) -- SEC-East champ -- Outback Bowl victor (over #18 Wisconsin)
• 2008 -- 5-7 (3-5 in SEC)

Just to remind you: our very best seasons over the past 12 years since Fulmer left, our VERY best, were a couple of 9-win seasons under Butch. But nine or ten wins was the _norm_ with Fulmer. Even in those last six seasons.

Yes, Phillip got complacent. But even a complacent Fulmer is better than anything we've done since.

Anyone who thinks Fulmer has been our problem, or was even our first problem, is a fool. Getting rid of him was our first problem.

As for the rest of your post, I couldn't get past that first bone-headed statement. So I didn't read any more.

Go Vols!

I have no clue how anyone does not understand this

 

[West Vol]

What is any coach’s record against Saban, Spurrier( at Florida), Meyer, Richt (during his early years)? Rarely were we not competitive against those great coaches and had opportunities to win. We aren’t even competitive in those games any longer

What? He was competitive against Urban once. Saban drilled him every time they met while he was at Bama. Spurrier and Richt whipped him badly more often than not.

 

[Rickyvol77]

To me in a nutshell this is what should have happened, Fulmer should have been out as early as 2002, but by 2004 for sure. Spurrier should have been hired as I read an interview with him and he was asked if he would have taken the Tennessee job and he said that he would have loved to have that job but it was taken.

I know some on here despise him, but to me he can say whatever he wants as long as he can back it up and he was just about always able to back it up.

It is insanity to state Fulmer should’ve been fired in 2002.

 

[airvols]

Yeah it was really rough winning the East every third year, playing for championships and never questioning if you’re going to a bowl game. I know at the end we had few bad years but that’s why we feel so irrelevant these days. I know until we get back there we’re never going to be satisfied.

 

[Rickyvol77]

What? He was competitive against Urban once. Saban drilled him every time they met while he was at Bama. Spurrier and Richt whipped him badly more often than not.

Fulmer was like 5-9 vs Spurrier with two of those losses coming on the last play of the game. Let’s not act like he never beat him. And Saban was 2-1 against him at LSU and 2-0 against him at Bama. Richt did win those first three against him and then Fulmer went 2-3 since. I agree Fulmer needed to make changes sooner and he wouldve saved his job but let’s not act like his later years were all trash either

 

[West Vol]

Yeah it was really rough winning the East every third year, playing for championships and never questioning if you’re going to a bowl game. I know at the end we had few bad years but that’s why we feel so irrelevant these days. I know until we get back there we’re never going to be satisfied.

Heck yeah. We occasionally won a six team division that didn’t play the same schedule back when our main competition were guys Florida and Georgia ended up firing. I’m sure that translates to awesome results in today’s SEC.

 

[GoVols64]

Pruitt is learning on the job, but the rate at which he learns is way too slow for the vast majority of Vol fans, including myself. I'm certainly not calling for his job, but I'm tired of losing. Very tired.

I'm tired too my friend, I hear you. I do believe the foundation is now setting. Tactical patience to let the situation develop is required; but it is hard. I really believe in a few years we will look back and see the valley below Rocky Top with a smile. We simply can't forget we are still on the climb....

 

[West Vol]

Fulmer was like 5-9 vs Spurrier with two of those losses coming on the last play of the game. Let’s not act like he never beat him. And Saban was 2-1 against him at LSU and 2-0 against him at Bama. Richt did win those first three against him and then Fulmer went 2-3 since. I agree Fulmer needed to make changes sooner and he wouldve saved his job but let’s not act like his later years were all trash either

He played Saban at LSU early on when Saban was trying to pull that team out of the rut DiNardo left them in. Fulmer had a team he’s called his most talented ever and went 1-1 against one of Saban’s weaker teams.

His “great” 2007 season saw us get beat soundly by Cal and run out of the stadium by Florida and Bama. His time was up. His results were rapidly declining and that was back when the SEC was less of a grind than it is today. He didn’t have Cutcliffe anymore and the three guys he focused on to replace him (Spence, DeBord, and Clawson) were all terminated after 2008.

 

[GoVols64]

No one can do anything about the past. Pruitt sucks now......this is the problem.....right now.

Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong. The Vols are reborn today. The war is just beginning. And we will not be the last Volunteers.

 

[Rickyvol77]

He played Saban at LSU early on when Saban was trying to pull that team out of the rut DiNardo left them in. Fulmer had a team he’s called his most talented ever and went 1-1 against one of Saban’s weaker teams.

His “great” 2007 season saw us get beat soundly by Cal and run out of the stadium by Florida and Bama. His time was up. His results were rapidly declining and that was back when the SEC was less of a grind than it is today. He didn’t have Cutcliffe anymore and the three guys he focused on to replace him (Spence, DeBord, and Clawson) were all terminated after 2008.

I didn’t say 2007 was a great season. Our defense was awful. However we at least won the East and I’d take that to where we are now. I do agree with your point on Patterson. He is the one coach mentioned the last 10 years I would’ve taken

 

[utvolford]

1) Fulmer. Great coach, great guy but he was retained too long. The SEC and good teams clearly passed him by. (To the deniers- his record his last 6 years) Kiffin inherited an empty cupboard.
2) Kiffin. The right idea but a bad decision who napalmed the program. Terrible decision not putting in a contractual safe guard to leave after only one year.
3) Brown. Hindsight has proven keeping him for a year as interim coach would have been advantageous and probably program saving.
4) Dooley. Maybe to worst hire ever. A loser from LA Tech. Did nothing for 3 years- recruiting was a joke. He solidified our culture of losing.
5) Jones. Another awful hire who wasn't nearly big enough for the job. Could not analyze or develop talent.
6) Pruitt. Year 3- are we improving? Good coordinator. Knows the coference and game, but is he smart enough to be a CEO?

What's a commonality they all have besides losing to our rivals? It's our fundamental problem- ineffective leadership above them at the highest levels. How many visionless and unprepared ADs have we had? More importantly, how many clueless presidents and chancellors have we had? And above them is the BODs. There's our problem. Until they want stop making politically correct decisions (ie Davenport) and understand football's economic AND academic impact (ie Alabama) our football program will be on loop.

Too complicated - it comes down to two people, David Cutcliffe and Mike Hamilton. When Cut was there with Fulmer, the Vols were good (if not great). Once he left and a slide re-started , Hamilton fired a HOF coach who needed to find a new fit on the offensive side and hired bozos to replace him - haven’t recovered since.

 

[Carl Pickens]

1977, last time Tennessee football hired a high profile head coach

And...... how long did it take him to turn the program around?

 

[Tin Man]

Hamilton.

 

[VolArmy74]

1999 was the first warning shot. One of Fulmer's most loaded teams and we went 9-3. Should have won the national championship again that year. 2002 was loaded too and picked 2/3rd to start the season. Another crap show disaster. We had the chance to bury Florida, fresh off Spurrier leaving. We floundered. 2005, the bottom fell completely out. All our rivals were much better and we lost to Vanderbilt. The firing should have happened at that second. We fired Johnny Majors two years after back to back SEC Championships. That worked out okay, since Johnny had the team absolutely stacked with NFL talent.

You can look back at Auburn and how they handle coaches, three of their last four coaches have went unbeaten at some point and all were fired soon after. They fired Tuberville 3 years after he went 13-0. They won a national title right after that. Before that they fired Terry Bowden mid season a year after he'd went 10-3 and he had an 11-0 season a few years before that. They canned Chizk right after his undefeated national title year and hired Malzahn, who promptly took them back to the national title game. Odds are they will fire him this year and probably hire Huge Freeze or Urban Meyer.

It's never about firing a guy struggling, it's about hiring idiots.

 

[BamaJack]

Fulmer didn’t get lazy necessarily but, he was a victim of his own success. By that I mean, Fulmer had gotten so successful at UT that he didn’t have to recruit as hard around the Manning era, yet still pulled in blue chip after blue chip. The problem was around 05-08 you had new blood coming into the coaching ranks in the SEC. What killed Fulmer’s career was the fact that Saban, Meyer, Miles and Richt were relentless recruiters and Tennessee’s pull on recruiting was slipping because they had become an average football program.

As for Pruitt, I realize he doesn’t look like he has “IT” but, for the time being he is still recruiting very well. As a poster pointed out earlier, it took Majors a few years to achieve success, as it will Pruitt. I realize everyone wants instant results but, Saban at Alabama, Meyer at UF and tOSU and Smart at Georgia just aren’t the norm. Remember this, nobody was hot after Saban at Michigan State. It was only after he figured out his style and system of head coaching at LSU that he became a hot commodity. Give Pruitt 2-3 more years and, if by then he hasn’t figured it out, by all means can his butt!

 

[norrislakevol]

Why, in the world, would a school hire someone that needs to "learn on the job"?

Good question. A lot of schools do that though. Georgia comes to mind.

 

[2GeeZ4VolZ]

For OP and anyone else still committed to the fateful decision a decade ago...how are you still incapable of acknowledging it was a mistake? It was, objectively, a mistake. He was the best recruiter and developer of line talent in the country, which always finds a way to pop given decent skill guys. It was a mistake. Plain and simple. He was our coach Snyder and bled orange. We will never find another one like him. It was likely a program killing mistake unfortunately.

 

[Roustabout]

1) Fulmer. Great coach, great guy but he was retained too long. The SEC and good teams clearly passed him by. (To the deniers- his record his last 6 years) Kiffin inherited an empty cupboard.
2) Kiffin. The right idea but a bad decision who napalmed the program. Terrible decision not putting in a contractual safe guard to leave after only one year.
3) Brown. Hindsight has proven keeping him for a year as interim coach would have been advantageous and probably program saving.
4) Dooley. Maybe to worst hire ever. A loser from LA Tech. Did nothing for 3 years- recruiting was a joke. He solidified our culture of losing.
5) Jones. Another awful hire who wasn't nearly big enough for the job. Could not analyze or develop talent.
6) Pruitt. Year 3- are we improving? Good coordinator. Knows the coference and game, but is he smart enough to be a CEO?

What's a commonality they all have besides losing to our rivals? It's our fundamental problem- ineffective leadership above them at the highest levels. How many visionless and unprepared ADs have we had? More importantly, how many clueless presidents and chancellors have we had? And above them is the BODs. There's our problem. Until they want stop making politically correct decisions (ie Davenport) and understand football's economic AND academic impact (ie Alabama) our football program will be on loop.

This again, huh?

Your last paragraph sums it up. Had Fulmer had an AD he respected as trusted, he would have been ok. The game didn’t pass him by, He lost focus and the school didn’t want to pay the $$ on coordinators. Had Fulmer never promoted Sanders I think he would have coached another 15 years at least. Team Discipline fell apart.

 

[VolPack22]

If Fulmer had stayed we were getting Tajh Boyd and Bryce Petty and we would’ve been back to contending for another SEC championship with that defense. But Kiffin told them that they didn’t fit his system. That was the ultimate turning point in our program.

 

[cobbwebb0710]

Dude.

Fulmer's last six years: 49-27. That's a .645 win rate. Two SEC East titles. Three different 10-win seasons, and another with 9 wins. Here, I'll bold the parts you seem to be missing:

• 2003 -- 10-3 (6-2 in SEC)
• 2004 -- 10-3 (7-1 in SEC) -- SEC-East champ -- Cotton Bowl victor (over #22 A&M)
• 2005 -- 5-6 (3-5 in SEC)
• 2006 -- 9-4 (5-3 in SEC)
• 2007 -- 10-4 (6-2 in SEC) -- SEC-East champ -- Outback Bowl victor (over #18 Wisconsin)
• 2008 -- 5-7 (3-5 in SEC)

Just to remind you: our very best seasons over the past 12 years since Fulmer left, our VERY best, were a couple of 9-win seasons under Butch. But nine or ten wins was the _norm_ with Fulmer. Even in those last six seasons.

Yes, Phillip got complacent. But even a complacent Fulmer is better than anything we've done since.

Anyone who thinks Fulmer has been our problem, or was even our first problem, is a fool. Getting rid of him was our first problem.

As for the rest of your post, I couldn't get past that first bone-headed statement. So I didn't read any more.

Go Vols!

I think a lot of people realize this but are afraid to admit it, you know, e-cred...
GBO!!