Would Fleck be a good fit For Vols?

#101
#101
VFL49er said:
The difference is he took over a G5 school that was bad and made them great. Butch took over two G5 schools that were great and made them good. And Flecks 3rd year at a P5 he went 11-2, Butch went 9-4
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Fair enough, kind of splitting hairs though. They both won mid-major conference titles then by year 3 had a P5 program headed in the right direction.

Fleck at Minnesota had a much softer schedule than Butch did, although he did manage to beat a top 10 team and a top 15 SEC team in the bowl.
 
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#102
#102
05_never_again said:
Fair enough, kind of splitting hairs though. They both won mid-major conference titles then by year 3 had a P5 program headed in the right direction.

Fleck at Minnesota had a much softer schedule than Butch did, although he did manage to beat a top 10 team and a top 15 SEC team in the bowl.
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I admit the 3rd year at a P5 comparison is close, but I do think it’s fair and important to note how Fleck improved Western Michigan immensely from where it was (after a rough first year), while Butch actually made Central Michigan and Cincy worse than where they were under Brian Kelly. And I’m not even as hard on Butch as most are, but I am a huge PJ Fleck fan and have been for a while
 
#103
#103
VFL49er said:
I admit the 3rd year at a P5 comparison is close, but I do think it’s fair and important to note how Fleck improved Western Michigan immensely from where it was (after a rough first year), while Butch actually made Central Michigan and Cincy worse than where they were under Brian Kelly. And I’m not even as hard on Butch as most are, but I am a huge PJ Fleck fan and have been for a while
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You could argue that Fleck is more of a program-builder than Butch was, but regardless Butch did win conference titles at both mid-major schools he coached at. To be fair to Butch, he inherited good programs from Kelly but he did have some rebuilding to do - those Kelly teams were senior-heavy and had a lot of attrition from both rosters. He really didn't have a great season year 1 in Cincy, but by year 2/3 they were back to conference-title level and beat P5 teams in bowl games.

You can argue that Fleck's Western Michigan tenure is more impressive than Butch's Central Michigan/Cincy tenures, and that Fleck's year 3 at a P5 school was more impressive than Butch's year 3 at a P5 school. However their backgrounds, approaches, and track records are still pretty similar to each other.
 
#104
#104
VOLnMiami said:
Yeah Patterson would do very well here I think...Hell he's had TCU winning for years now and that's not an easy thing to do...Recruiting wise he would be a rock star here at UT...Plays a fun style of football.
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Hamilton done burned the bridge with Patterson when he hired Kiffin over him. He was never given a serious look even though he wanted the job at the time.

Just more proof on how incompetent our administration has been making the hires.
 
#105
#105
VOLnMiami said:
Yeah Patterson would do very well here I think...Hell he's had TCU winning for years now and that's not an easy thing to do...Recruiting wise he would be a rock star here at UT...Plays a fun style of football.
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Patterson would have been a better hire than Kiffin, but his marks as a P5 coach (since TCU joined the Big 12) have actually been really uneven and inconsistent. He's finished with a top 10 team 3 times, but has finished unranked 5 times and hasn't won a conference title. His reputation is still living in large part on those last 3-4 years TCU was in the Mountain West, when they won the Rose Bowl and finished #2, made another BCS bowl, had Andy Dalton, etc.

Since joining the Big 12, Patterson is 65-43 overall and just barely above .500 in conference play (41-36). Our program would almost certainly be in a better state today if we hired him instead of Kiffin, simply because GP would have stayed more than just 1 year in all likelihood. But I'm not totally convinced he'd consistently win at a level our fanbase would be happy with.
 
#106
#106
05_never_again said:
Patterson would have been a better hire than Kiffin, but his marks as a P5 coach (since TCU joined the Big 12) have actually been really uneven and inconsistent. He's finished with a top 10 team 3 times, but has finished unranked 5 times and hasn't won a conference title. His reputation is still living in large part on those last 3-4 years TCU was in the Mountain West, when they won the Rose Bowl and finished #2, made another BCS bowl, had Andy Dalton, etc.

Since joining the Big 12, Patterson is 65-43 overall and just barely above .500 in conference play (41-36). Our program would almost certainly be in a better state today if we hired him instead of Kiffin, simply because GP would have stayed more than just 1 year in all likelihood. But I'm not totally convinced he'd consistently win at a level our fanbase would be happy with.
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To be completely honest, I'm not convinced there is a coach out there that can do that at this point. I think the fan's perception of the program's status far outpaces its actual status on the national level. I have been guilty of this myself in the past but have finally began to accept the truth that we probably won't ever be an elite program again. Doesn't mean we can't have a few years now and again where we excel, and maybe we can get some transcendent player and have a NC run one year, but I don't think we ever reach the point where we were from the mid 80s to the early aughts, again
 
#107
#107
VFL49er said:
To be completely honest, I'm not convinced there is a coach out there that can do that at this point. I think the fan's perception of the program's status far outpaces its actual status on the national level. I have been guilty of this myself in the past but have finally began to accept the truth that we probably won't ever be an elite program again. Doesn't mean we can't have a few years now and again where we excel, and maybe we can get some transcendent player and have a NC run one year, but I don't think we ever reach the point where we were from the mid 80s to the early aughts, again
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The problem is what people consider to be successful.

During a rebuilding year or two in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc a 5-6 season or a 7-5 season was acceptable as rebuilding, while a 9-2 season was seen as amazing and a 10 win season was the pinnacle.

Then our fanbase got younger, the game and society changed and Majors/Fulmers run from 85-07 jaded too many of our fanbase.

Remember there are people on this board still who was ready to fire everyone and burn the program down over 10-2 and 9-3 seasons...

I believe Tennessee's struggles the last decade have been because of a few basic truths:

1) Our administrations lacked vision and planning for hiring football coaches. The coaching hires didnt work for several reasons, and that translated over on the field

2) Our schedule did not do us any favors. Playing the likes of Oregon and Oklahoma were great during the 90s, but in rebuilding seasons when we are trying to adjust with newer coaches, it was killer against top 5 teams in OOC games. Our conference schedule was EVEN worse. With Florida, Georgia, Bama becoming elite again, it made it harder to win the conference. Hell even with top 10 recruiting classes, we are still usually 5-6 in the SEC...getting to those levels make it hard to rebuild. On top of that, the SEC west schools that rotated on our schedules always seemed to be when they were top 10 teams that were loaded

Look at these Tennessee teams that barely missed bowl games and who they played:

2011
Cincy (10-3)
Florida (7-6)
Georgia (10-4)
LSU (13-1)
Alabama (12-1)
S. Carolina (11-2)
Arkansas (11-2)

2012
NC State (7-6)
Florida (11-2)
Georgia (12-2)
Miss State (8-5)
Alabama (13-1)
S. Carolina (11-2)
Vandy (9-4)

2013
WKU (8-4)
Oregon (11-2)
Florida (4-8)
Georgia (8-5)
S. Carolina (11-2)
Alabama (11-2)
Mizzou (12-2)
Auburn (12-2)
Vandy (9-4)

3) We have to work on constantly getting back to beating the UK, Vandy, SC, Mizzou, Miss schools, A&M regularly..I don't expect to rattle off 30 wins in a row against Vandy or UK anymore but definitely 9 out of every 10 years we shold beat them.

4) As a fanbase, we need to pull the middle ground and have constructive criticism of the program, players and coaches without the knee jerk fire everyone, etc. Much like politics, the two sides have become too polarized and emotionally invested to be taken seriously
 
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#108
#108
VFL49er said:
To be completely honest, I'm not convinced there is a coach out there that can do that at this point. I think the fan's perception of the program's status far outpaces its actual status on the national level. I have been guilty of this myself in the past but have finally began to accept the truth that we probably won't ever be an elite program again. Doesn't mean we can't have a few years now and again where we excel, and maybe we can get some transcendent player and have a NC run one year, but I don't think we ever reach the point where we were from the mid 80s to the early aughts, again
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It's going to require Florida, Georgia, and Alabama - particularly Georgia - throttling down and not performing at a top 5 or top 10 level nationally every year.

I know that sounds defeatist and I'll get called a Negavol, but I think it's true. Each of those programs have inherent recruiting advantages over us. When they have capable coaches and administrations leading their programs as they do now, they are going to be able to consistently out-recruit us. And in CFB you've already won over half the battle if you're getting superior talent. IMO, Pruitt is recruiting about as well as is humanly possible at Tennessee right now given the landscape of the conference. He just simply is not going to be able to win more than his fare share of recruiting battles against Saban and Kirby.

It isn't a coincidence that Fulmer saw his greatest success when Alabama and Georgia were both down. He really only had to compete with Florida in the SEC, and Florida for the most part still ate his lunch. Georgia has had capable recruiters and coaches at their helm since 2001. Alabama has had the greatest coach in CFB history at their helm since 2007. Florida had an incredibly capable coach/recruiter from 2005-10, and appears to have hired their best coach in many years starting in 2017. It isn't a coincidence that all those things have occurred and Tennessee hasn't been the same since 2001, and has been downright terrible since 2008.

Either that, or we somehow hire an incredibly special coach who turns a bunch of 4-stars into 5s and a bunch of 3-stars into 4s.

And before somebody comes in and says "But what about Clemson and Dabo"...that's the ACC.
 
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#109
#109
Rickyvol77 said:
3) We have to work on constantly getting back to beating the UK, Vandy, SC, Mizzou, Miss schools, A&M regularly..I don't expect to rattle off 30 wins in a row against Vandy or UK anymore but definitely 9 out of every 10 years we shold beat them.
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This is the most frustrating part of our ineptitude.

I get why we have trouble with Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Especially when they are up. I don't like it, but I get it.

However, there is no good reason why Tennessee should be 3-5 against Vandy over the last 8 seasons. Or 6-7 against South Carolina over the last 13. Or 4-5 against Missouri over the last 9. Tennessee, despite all our self-inflicted wounds, still out-recruits and is more talented than those teams. I'm not saying that we should have gone 13-0 against South Carolina since 2008 or 9-0 against Mizzou since 2012, but we should be much better than one game below .500. The differences in overall resources between us and them is just staggering.

We struggle against the Big 3 because they're all really good...we struggle against the rest of our conference opponents because of self-inflicted wounds.
 
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#110
#110
Vfl2407 said:
I’m not calling for CJPs head yet.But watching Minnesota play, I’m just thinking Fleck might be someone to keep on our radar.
i know the “row the boat” thing is corny, but he can coach.
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The guy at Cinci long before this guy. And, I don't care that Jones came from Cinci.
 
#114
#114
VolFreakJosh said:
Hamilton done burned the bridge with Patterson when he hired Kiffin over him. He was never given a serious look even though he wanted the job at the time.

Just more proof on how incompetent our administration has been making the hires.
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Yeah he did it with Brian Kelly too...Either one would've been a great choice.
 
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