VTTW Board Index

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Pruitt may wind up being a very good coach, but man it would've been fun to have Mike Leach at UT!

Yep.  Pressers certainly would have been a blast. 

Leach would have been fine here, IMO.  He would have found a Pruitt to run the defense and stayed out of his way while running the offense. 

And, no, Leach probably wouldn't have won an SEC title here, but he certainly would have likely made the program better than when he got here. 

But, we'll never know for sure.  Thanks, Phillip Fulmer. 

I have nothing but praise for Phillip so far.  It's early, but I think he is doing a good job so far.

I know criticizing Fulmer is close to heresy at Tennessee right now, but just for the sake of conversation...based on what? I'm not saying he's doing a bad job necessarily, but I haven't seen anything that makes me sit up and say, "Wow, he's a great AD." Imo, the Pruitt hire was a huge gamble that was made because Fulmer wanted his thumbprint on the program. I'm not saying Pruitt won't be successful. I hope he wins national championships here and everyone thinks Fulmer is the greatest AD the university has ever had. I'm very much in wait-and-see mode on Pruitt. But IF he doesn't turn this thing around, IMO that's directly on Fulmer and risks his UT legacy completely. Aside from Pruitt, Fulmer gave Barnes a contract that is still making me wince (as much as I loved the guy and wanted to keep him), and got completely neutered by the old guard on the women's side and made an underwhelming hire to replace Holly. Again, don't get me wrong...I want Harper to succeed. I fondly remember the days when she was the PG of those great Summitt teams, and I spent a lot of time watching her brother, Brent, play ball for Jeff Lebo at TTU. The Jolly family is a solid all-American family from small-town Middle Tennessee. It'll be easy to like Harper and want her to succeed...I'm just saying I think it was a big gamble for the sake of hiring someone from within the UT family.

John Currie set himself up for the fall with his attempt to hire Greg Schiano. At the very least, the Schiano flirtation was a sign that he was totally tone-deaf with regard to the culture of UT, and that entire coaching search was a debacle. But, IMO, the "coup" that UT fans are still celebrating was NOT what this university needed. I admire Fulmer for the '90s. I always will, much in the same way I admire UT figures like John Majors and Andy Kelly. But I don't trust him or his motives...no more than I guess most UT fans trust the Jim Haslam and his motives.

Time will tell...I'm just not sold on Fulmer as an AD right now. I hope he proves me wrong.

Let's say that Pruitt doesn't get it done after next year and UT goes coach hunting again.  Having tried the "up and comers" route way too many times, the program is going to have to open the checkbook and bring a proved coach in. 

Do you honestly believe that any experienced coach who has proved himself capable of winning on a high level is going to take the job with Phillip Fulmer as the AD looking over his shoulder? 

I don't see any scenario where that is going to happen. 

Fulmer is too much of a "under his thumb" guy.  That's what got him fired in the first place. 

+1. We are in the same boat. And until this day I still can't believe we fired a guy who let the one program he was responsible for sink...then pay him 6 million to go away. Then turn around and hired that said person to head up the entire athletic program. You just can't make that stuff up and nobody can name one other program in the country in history that's done that. As Mike Leach said, it was a coup. And it was in the plans for quite a while.

He recruited me back in the day so I always have an appreciation for him.

Pruit wasn’t really a gamble at the time. If you recall, we were the laughing stock of ESPN up to, during and after Schiano. Aside from a few high school coaches, there was nothing available.

Mike Leach was available! As were others who had head coaching experience. Now, maybe head coaching experience is overrated, considering our last 3 hires all had head coaching experience and none panned out. But I think there were a lot of names still out there who would've been less of a gamble.

I also give Fulmer some credit for getting arguably the best OC from a division rival with Bama like talent.

You can thank the OC's wife for his being here.  She wanted back in this area and back where her kids were. 

Still, Fulmer opened the checkbook to make it happen.  Something Vol fans have long complained about UT leadership not doing.

Don't disagree.  Just saying that Mama wanted to come back to the area.  If not, Will Friend would be the OC right now. 

True.  The circumstances had to line up, for sure.

We gon' see. Leach would have been a standup double at worst, and possibly a triple.

Will Friend will make or break Pruitt and Fulmer - unless Pittman saves the day. I'm hoping Friend is amazing.