Things in Knoxville seem to be getting worse. Two people called into the statewide radio show “Vol Calls” and asked for Phillip Fulmer’s resignation on Monday night.
Then yesterday, the coach himself made an ill-advised move in his weekly press conference. Fulmer, when asked about booing fans, responded with this, “Ninety-five percent of them probably never played football before, or maybe not a sport. I don’t know. I can’t tell you that. I would have booed a couple things I saw out there if I’d have been in the stands.”
Fulmer was A-OK with the second statement, but it sure sounded like he meant the first part, caught himself, and quickly covered his tracks. I don’t care how angry the booing makes him, a head coach cannot insult the fanbase.
If 95% of the fans didn’t play football, does that mean they don’t deserve the right to attend it and react to it? And what about all the times Fulmer has said “we have the best fans in the world.” Was he secretly thinking, “these people don’t know what they’re talking about.”
95% of folks have never starred in a Hollywood movie or recorded a Top 10 album, either… but that doesn’t stop folks from saying, “man, I liked this, but I think that’s crap.”
Please. Never, ever go after the fans. But it’s clear this is a running theme behind the closed doors of the UT practice facility. At least two players have now said the exact same, “they never played” line that their coach let slip on Tuesday.
Not good.
Here’s a topic-by-topic breakdown of Fulmer’s sometimes animated meeting with the media.
This notes column reveals that Fulmer disagrees with many of the criticisms put forth by CBS analyst Gary Danielson, that receiver Gerald Jones wants to throw the football out of the G-Gun package and that Chad Cunningham will probably still be the punter against Auburn.
Jones also can’t believe what he’s hearing from Vol fans who are growing weary of big-game blowouts at home. “Firing Fulmer? C’mon now. He is one of the winningest coaches in NCAA history. They are not going to fire that man. He is not going anywhere.”
Receiver Josh Briscoe is angry, too. “It makes us mad as a team. Everybody seems to know how to coach. Everybody seems to know how to fix situations. But the real fact is, if everybody had all the answers this world would be a completely different place. Everybody doesn’t have the answers.”
Mark McCarter of The Huntsville Times believes logic shows that a change is needed at the top of the UT program. But he also believes Fulmer will survive thanks to a new contract and the support of the school’s president.
Now, we turn the focus to this Saturday’s Auburn game, where the Tigers WILL be playing with most of the guys who were banged up against LSU.
Mike Strange of The Knoxville News Sentinel does a nice comparison piece on the struggles of new offensive coordinators Tony Franklin (Auburn) and Dave Clawson (Tennessee).
And the powdered-wigged John Adams, also of The Sentinel, writes that the UT-Auburn game is probably an elimination game from the SEC championship race. Even though Tennessee reached Atlanta with two losses last year, one of those came in mid-October. It’s not a good idea to lose two SEC games before the end of September with so many more league games to play.
TENNESSEE FOOTBALL NEWS - 9/24/08
September 24th, 2008 8:50 am ║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink ║
4 Responses to “TENNESSEE FOOTBALL NEWS - 9/24/08”
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September 24th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I don’t agree with Fulmer’s phrasing but I do agree with his idea, and have been saying so for years. My view is this: a majority (I wouldn’t put a number on it) of the vocal fans have NO IDEA about football. It doesn’t matter if they played or not (I did); how they view the game is simple: if a play is successful, it was a good call. If a play failed, it was a bad call. Same with Chavis on defense. If somebody scores on UT then “Chavis sucks.” I sat and listened to people bad-mouth Sanders until he left, and lo and behold has a successful offense at UK of all places. Some fans did the same to Cutcliffe, and he’s turned Duke around, at least so far.
A good example is when the Vols beat Miami 10-9. The TD UT scored was on the goal line, and they took the ball off the line and ran an end-around against the speedy Miami defense. A horrible call, I thought, but it was a TD and proved to be a game winner. If #20 (I forget his name) had not scored on that the fans I mentioned above would have gone NUTS about how stupid it was not to run between the tackles on the 2 inch line.
Let the coaches coach, because they’ve proved they know what they are doing. Like Fulmer said, they didn’t all of a sudden get dumber.
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September 24th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Key word in your dissertation is “proved”.
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September 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
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September 25th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Phillip Fulmer said that he didn’t wake up one day and forget how to coach. I believe this to be true, it’s not all his fault that they are where they are today. He is coaching in a conference that has had high profile coaches come in and take over the recruiting in one area, ” The South Easten Conference”. This portion of the United States turns out a good portion of the NFL. It’s no secret that in the past 4 years or so that Fulmer and his staff has turned out lackluster recruiting classes while other coaches have taken all the talent to other teams. Other programs are suffering from this as well, Spurrier has not been able to get South Carolina’s head above water. Florida State and Miami is getting Urban Meyer’s left overs and have struggled themselves. Fulmer has been forced to resort to recruits closer to home. The percentage of players on the Vols team from Tennessee this year is a lot higher than the teams 5 to 10 years ago. Tennessee’s just not got the talent to recruit within the state like a Texas, Florida, or California. I guess what I am trying to say is there’s no coach out there available that would make a big enough splash the way Nick Saban, Les Miles, Mark Richt, and Urban Meyers have, that would draw recruits away from them. Fulmer hasn’t forgot how to coach, he just need to figure out a way to recruit more talent, one or two good guys every class just won’t cut it in the SEC.
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