If you’re a Tennessee fan, the numbers are numbing.
           
In the Vols’ last 27 SEC games, they are 14-13.
           
In their nine games against Top 10 opponents at Neyland Stadium in the
2000s, they are 1-8. The average margin of defeat: 16.6 points. Four losses are by more than 20 points.
           
After Tennessee stunk it up in a 30-6 home loss to fourth-ranked Florida, Vols coach Phillip Fulmer declared: “That loss is on me.”
           
For that matter, so was the UCLA loss.
           
And the loss last year to Alabama.
           
There have been others, to be sure.
           
Fulmer was a great coach in the 1990s. His record says so. He won 72
games in seven full seasons (83 percent), two SEC championships and one national championship.
           
Fulmer has been no better than a good coach in the 2000s. His record
says so. He’s won 68.5 percent of his games, had five four-loss seasons
(compared to one in the 1990s), and not won an SEC title.
           
In 2005, Tennessee was 5-6.
           
A prominent Tennessee booster told me Fulmer could not survive another six-loss season. The booster told me Fulmer couldn’t go 10 years without winning an SEC title, although the booster amended that recently to 12 years, given Fulmer’s recent seven-year contract that averages out to $2.99 million.
           
I’m convinced Fulmer will not retain his job if Tennessee goes 6-6.
           
At 7-5, he’s dangerously close to the unemployment line.
           
Why am I convinced UT would buyout Fulmer for $1.35 million over the next four years if he goes 6-6?
           
Two words: Apathy and attendance.
           
Tennessee ’s turnstile attendance for the season-opener against Alabama-Birmingham was about 80,000. It’s the smallest UT home opener in the 24 years I’ve covered the Vols.
           
And, for the first time, I saw empty seats at a UT-Florida game in
Neyland Stadium. At kickoff, several hundred empty seats were seen at
the top level of the student section with more empty seats in the upper level of the North end zone.
           
At the start of the second half, Neyland Stadium had several thousand
empty seats as disgusted fans left the scene of an impending train
wreck. Florida led 20-0 and UT’s clock management and execution were
laughable, if you weren’t paying thousands of dollars for the right to
buy expensive tickets. Maddening, if you were.
           
Midway through the fourth quarter, there might have been more Florida fans – over 10,000 – than UT fans.
           
If Tennessee loses at Auburn – and the Tigers have lost just once at home to Tennessee since 1985 – what kind of crowd do you expect at Neyland Stadium when Northern Illinois comes to town Oct. 4?
           
What kind of crowd do you expect at home for Mississippi State Oct. 18?
           
Nothing puts a coach’s job in jeopardy like more losses and less fans.
           
Can Tennessee afford the price tag of buying out Fulmer? It won’t be easy. The difficulty is lessoned by spreading the payments out over 48 months. And if Fulmer goes 6-6, maybe he would be agreeable to negotiating a different deal.
           
Of course, it was just one year ago that Tennessee started 1-2 and rallied to win the East Division, play for the SEC title and win a bowl game.
           
But I don’t give UT as much chance to bounce back this season. Quarterback Jonathan Crompton has played the majority of snaps in five UT games and won one – over a pitiful UAB team.
           
Dave Clawson, UT’s new offensive coordinator, has yet to prove he can win at this level.
           
With Auburn, Georgia, Alabama as three of your next five games, the road is indeed rocky.
           
Fulmer has survived a rock road before.
           
He’ll be challenged like never before to do it again.
           

Tuberville: Take Smaller, Athletic Linemen
 
Tommy Tuberville has an interesting take on recruiting.
           
While some schools will sign a 6-foot-5, 350-pounder and put him on a diet, Auburn ’s coach goes in the other direction. He’d rather take a 6-5, 240-pounder, and put weight on him.
           
“With most linemen, you have to project,” Tuberville said. “That’s hard to do. We take a guy that’s 240, 250 and put about 30, 40 pounds on him. Can they handle the weight?
           
“It all starts with athletic ability. I don’t like recruiting a guy that’s 6-5, 335 and has to lose weight to make him a better athlete. Our philosophy is bring, in good athletes and try to put weight on them and keep the same athletic ability and quickness and speed to become better players.”
           
That philosophy has served Auburn well.
 

Miles Beats Another Top 10 Foe
 
I must admit I’ve been a long doubter of LSU coach Les Miles.
           
But he’s won me over.
           
Sure he won a national championship with many players he inherited from Nick Saban. He won 34 games in three years with some gutsy – some might say lucky — gambles.
           
The win at Auburn on Saturday night, however, was strong. LSU won with its backup quarterback in a hostile environment against a team that had won six in a row over a top 10 opponent at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
           
LSU had to come from behind with 90 seconds left and got the job done, showing poise and execution benefiting a championship team.
           
Miles is now 8-3 against top 10 opponents. You’ve got to be more than just lucky to achieve that kind of success.
 
           
Extra Points

* For the second year in a row Mississippi State got embarrassed against a non-league foe on the road. State lost last year 38-13 to West Virginia and fell this year Georgia Tech 38-7 as the Yellow Jackets ran for 438 yards – its most since 1978.


* Don’t look for Vanderbilt to blow this 4-0 start like it did when Jay Cutler was a senior in 2005. That season, the Commodores lost to MTSU in the fifth game and never recovered, going 5-6. Vandy has winnable games left against Mississippi State, Duke, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Two wins will get Vandy into a bowl for the first time since 1982.


* Auburn ’s anemic offense showed signs of life against LSU as Chris Todd passed for 250 yards.

* Just wondering: Is Arkansas the worst SEC team since Woody Widenhofer’s Vanderbilt squad went 2-9 in 2001? Or maybe it was the Vandy team that was 2-9 under Rod Dowhower in 1996? Each of those vandy team’s went 0-8.

* If South Carolina ’s offense can’t score more than 23 points against Wofford, is there any reason to think the Gamecocks will score more than 23 in any SEC game?
 
 
My votes in this week’s MrSEC Power Poll – Presented by FootballSpeakers.com:

1)  Florida

2)  Georgia

3)  LSU

4)  Alabama

5)  Auburn

6)  Vanderbilt

7)  Ole Miss

8)  Kentucky

9)  Tennessee

10)  South Carolina

11)  Mississippi State

12)  Arkansas

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