Theory For Recruiting Problems

[TNnative]

I will add that I don't know details about an actual scholarship offer. Just the whole Phil never recruited him part. He did come down. He did offer high praise telling Patrick he could play anywhere. Perhaps he was banking on having Patrick as a fallback plan who knows.

Ha ha ha. Bud, I can here Fulmer talking to you like Shaq talked to Kobe years ago:

 

[vegasvolfan]

Two losing seasons in four years and you don’t think it was time to go?

Add on to that he really had not accomplished much since that fiasco of the ‘01 SECCG. Everybody knows he backdoored the last two SECCG appearances. Had it been anybody else in ‘04 Auburn would have been in the NC game.

It wasn’t the firing of Fulmer that got us into this mess. It was the hires after him!

If all you are going to do is look at 2 losing seasons in 4 years and completely ignore everything else I said and the facts, then it’s like debating a prejudice person that black people should not be treated differently.

To say he had not accomplished much was to completely ignore the fact he won 9 games two years before he was fired and he won 10 games AND the SEC East the year before his last losing season. He had won 3-4 10+ seasons the 4 years prior to his first losing season EVER. All three of these seasons were division titles and one of which was an 11 win season.

Firing Fulmer and these limited perspectives and visions among those that make decisions is precisely why Knoxville, not just Tennessee, has struggled to be on top for so many years. Other cities and teams pass us by year after year. I’ve moved around and it is obvious how behind Knoxville and our program has been for decades.

Luckily, some are starting to realize people just don’t know what they are doing and we need to do something different.

I am not going to get into the city part, but with regards to football, firing Fulmer was the worst decision we have made as a football program. I already put his last 8 years into perspective, but not what happened since.

We fired a HOF fame coach who brought us the only national championship since 1967. NOONE that was or is any good has wanted to coach here since then because of that and because they don’t want to work with these people. IF we interview them, they take other jobs. I can’t believe we let Mullen slip through our fingers. Regardless, the last 13 years have simply been a big slice of karma pie because everyone got greedy. The greedy almost always eventually fall, and if they don’t learn their lesson they fall even further and the greedy are not limited to the rich.

These people are the same people that did not see the big picture when it came to letting Fulmer go and still had to look past an SEC Division Title to justify firing him. These people only looked at his last four years. These people are the same people that fired him without having a big named coach ready to take his place. These people are the same people who have struggled to make anything happen since.

Whoever has been making decisions since that time has been a cancer to our program and probably beyond. Period. That said, cancer can be healed and that would happen if whoever that is realizes sometimes things are good enough and starts supporting imperfection if it yields an SEC Eastern Division, a 9 win season and a losing season every three years which is what Fulmer produced his last 3 years. If we are able to do that, it means we are putting ourselves in a position to go further at least once every three years which is a hell of a lot more lucrative and exciting than the results we have seen since.

 

[volsknx]

If all you are going to do is look at 2 losing seasons in 4 years and completely ignore everything else I said and the facts, then it’s like debating a prejudice person that black people should not be treated differently.

To say he had not accomplished much was to completely ignore the fact he won 9 games two years before he was fired and he won 10 games AND the SEC East the year before his last losing season. He had won 3-4 10+ seasons the 4 years prior to his first losing season EVER. All three of these seasons were division titles and one of which was an 11 win season.

Firing Fulmer and this limited perspectives and visions among those that make decisions is precisely why Knoxville, not just Tennessee, has struggled to be on top for so many years. Other cities and teams pass us by year after year. I’ve moved around and it is obvious how behind Knoxville and our program has been for decades.

Luckily, some are starting to realize people just don’t know what they are doing and we need to do something different.

I am not going to get into the city part, but with regards to football, firing Fulmer was the worst decisions we have made as a football program. I already put his last 8 years into perspective, but not what happened since.

We fired a HOF fame coach who brought us the only national championship since 1967. NOONE that was or is any good has wanted to coach here since then because of that and because they don’t want to work with these people. IF we interview them, they take other jobs. I can’t believe we let Mullen slip through our fingers.
Regardless, the last 13 years have simply been a big slice of Karma pie because everyone got greedy. The greedy almost always eventually fall, and if they don’t learn their lesson they fall even further and the greedy are not limited to the rich.

These people are the same people that did not see the big picture when it came to letting Fulmer go and still had to look past an SEC Division Title to justify firing him. These people only looked at his last four years. These people are the same people that fired him without having a big named coach ready to take his place. These people are the same people who have struggled to make anything happen since.

Whoever has been making decisions since that time has been a cancer to our program and probably beyond. Period.

We fired a HOF coach who needed to be fired. The trajectory of the program was guiding downward even before the losing seasons and every one knew it.

You are correct, sir, about the administration and that is why we are in the situation we are in. It wasn’t the firing of a HOF coach, it was the subsequent hires!

You promote the first NC since ‘67 (phantom NC if you ask me) but neglect the disappointing ‘99 and ‘01 teams that should have been in the NC game.

You and others promote eight and nine win seasons like that is a great accomplishment but, you fail to comment on the three and four loss seasons! Sure, eight wins is/was great for a ten game season. An 8-2 record was good back in the day but an 8-4 record is not.

He wasted that ‘01 season with the LSU conference game but made up for it with the bowl game. After that, start racking up the lack luster bowl performances beginning with the Peach Bowls.

He should have been gone before ‘08!

 

[BeardedVol]

When they launched isn’t what’s relevant, it’s when they actually took off. MySpace was really a non-factor. Facebook was not really even “mainstream” until 2009. Twitter much later. Our mismanagement of the program caused the plummet. But the wide-spread access to opinion and information sure hasn’t helped us climb back out of the hole. The constant pour of information regarding our dire situation, I would contend, is a contributing factor (even if small) in perpetuating the struggle in righting the ship, because it is causing roadblocks in recruitment and public perception (when prior thereto there would have been less noise and groupthink mentality regarding the program).

To say otherwise would be to argue that widespread negative information regarding a program has no impact on the public perception and that public perception does not affect recruiting.

People talking about how bad of a decision these hires were at the time, and the horrendous aftermath of those hires, had no bearing on the outcome of any of them. The hires themselves have propagated the current misery that is the UT football program, not people talking about how bad they were.

You act like people didn't talk to each other before social media. That high school coaches and players weren't capable of learning about a failing football program without Twitter. That's just not the case. You're just looking for other reasons to pin the blame on than the people who made the decisions in the first place.

 

[1 in 102 455]

People talking about how bad of a decision these hires were at the time, and the horrendous aftermath of those hires, had no bearing on the outcome of any of them. The hires themselves have propagated the current misery that is the UT football program, not people talking about how bad they were.

You act like people didn't talk to each other before social media. That high school coaches and players weren't capable of learning about a failing football program without Twitter. That's just not the case. You're just looking for other reasons to pin the blame on than the people who made the decisions in the first place.

And you act free access to unlimited information doesn’t have any impact on a person’s decision making. You also act like my first post said it is simply a theory that couldn’t ever be proven one way or another. I’m not presenting it as fact. But to argue there is simply no conceivable impact is close-mindedness or just trolling.

You’re also ignoring the whole part about this that acknowledges the mishandlings in coach searches is what got us here. But I think our “tradition equity” could have stretched out a little further without the advent of social media.

And I’m not looking for reasons to pin anything on anyone other than the administration. It’s not an issue of blame but a misfortune in a perceived timing of a downfall. The admin botched this whole thing.

So, what say you now? Because I know there’s something you’re going to say. Take a week again if you need it.

 

[vegasvolfan]

We fired a HOF coach who needed to be fired. The trajectory of the program was guiding downward even before the losing seasons and every one knew it.

You are correct, sir, about the administration and that is why we are in the situation we are in. It wasn’t the firing of a HOF coach, it was the subsequent hires!

You promote the first NC since ‘67 (phantom NC if you ask me) but neglect the disappointing ‘99 and ‘01 teams that should have been in the NC game.

You and others promote eight and nine win seasons like that is a great accomplishment but, you fail to comment on the three and four loss seasons! Sure, eight wins is/was great for a ten game season. An 8-2 record was good back in the day but an 8-4 record is not.

He wasted that ‘01 season with the LSU conference game but made up for it with the bowl game. After that, start racking up the lack luster bowl performances beginning with the Peach Bowls.

He should have been gone before ‘08!

You are not looking at the big picture. You are looking at two losing seasons and calling what we would love to have mediocrity. Danny gets what I am saying. That is why Barnes got his extension. If we repeated Fulmer’s last 4 years 3 times over the last 12 since he was fired we would have three 9 win seasons, and 3 SEC Division titles. Furthermore, I don’t look at a person’s losing season if he wins the SEC division the year after. His second losing season was the head before he has a 10 win season and a 9 win season. You should be looking at his last 3 seasons if you want to get hyper focused about it and again, he did far better than anyone who has been willing to work here since we fired Fulmer and that is because we fired Fulmer. That’s right. People do not want to work here because we fired Fulmer and too many still support that decision.

Hopefully Huepel will fix a lot of our problems. I see him as being a consistent 8-9 win coach in the SEC before long. I hope he is better than that, but man he is up against some seasoned veterans. Once of which we let get away from us in Dan Mullen. More bad decisions at the top.

 

[BeardedVol]

And you act free access to unlimited information doesn’t have any impact on a person’s decision making. You also act like my first post said it is simply a theory that couldn’t ever be proven one way or another. I’m not presenting it as fact. But to argue there is simply no conceivable impact is close-mindedness or just trolling.

You’re also ignoring the whole part about this that acknowledges the mishandlings in coach searches is what got us here. But I think our “tradition equity” could have stretched out a little further without the advent of social media.

And I’m not looking for reasons to pin anything on anyone other than the administration. It’s not an issue of blame but a misfortune in a perceived timing of a downfall. The admin botched this whole thing.

So, what say you now? Because I know there’s something you’re going to say. Take a week again if you need it.

You'll have to forgive my tardiness, I get a lot of alert notifications on here, and you're just not really that important to anyone but your mother.

Do we need to go back and revisit your original theory for a refresher?

"I blame the extended nature of the Vol’s slump and the extended nature of other programs’ successes as having unfortunately coincided with the rise and boom of social media and instant access to information."

You seem to be struggling with the concepts of 'correlation' and 'causation'. You're trying to attribute the continued failure of UT, on increased awareness that UT is failing. That discussion of the results of a bad coach or AD hire, is somehow causing the coaches or AD's who come afterwards, to also struggle in their decision making, and further drive the football program into the dirt.

That's just not how this works. Dooley didn't fail because of people talking about his orange pants and poor clock management. Butch didn't fail because of people tweeting about "champions of life". Pruitt didn't fail because of conehead memes. They failed because they are bad coaches who made bad decisions, and the results were on display every Saturday, and just like reality before social media, good players, don't want to come and play for bad coaches.

The "extended nature" of UT's slump, is because UT consistently hired bad coaches and ADs for over a decade, not because people were talking about those failures on Twitter.

 

[1 in 102 455]

There is causation, and then there is aggravating factors. Causation is as you stated it. I believe that the rise of social media has aggravated/exacerbated positive/negative causal outcomes, but is not being the direct “but for” cause which is what you’ve honed in on. There is a correlation, but that’s not relevant as you’ve stated.

Simply put, I think in this age, the rich get a lot richer, the poor get a lot poorer, a lot quicker, with the caveat that those with less of a voice in the past can capitalize on having a larger audience.

You don’t have to agree. Again, it’s just a theory. And I don’t think it’s provable. But to dig in your heels and take personal jabs at a stranger is a little bizarre. Regardless, we can keep going in circles if you like, there’s not much else to talk about.

 

[AM64]

There is causation, and then there is aggravating factors. Causation is as you stated it. I believe that the rise of social media has aggravated/exacerbated positive/negative causal outcomes, but is not being the direct “but for” cause which is what you’ve honed in on. There is a correlation, but that’s not relevant as you’ve stated.

Simply put, I think in this age, the rich get a lot richer, the poor get a lot poorer, a lot quicker, with the caveat that those with less of a voice in the past can capitalize on having a larger audience.

You don’t have to agree. Again, it’s just a theory. And I don’t think it’s provable. But to dig in your heels and take personal jabs at a stranger is a little bizarre. Regardless, we can keep going in circles if you like, there’s not much else to talk about.

The "rich" in football tend to get richer because they have stable programs and build on that.

The poor get poorer because they keep hiring and firing coaches trying to keep up with the other guys. Instability is a killer in building a football dynasty.

 

[unfrozencvmanvol]

There is causation, and then there is aggravating factors. Causation is as you stated it. I believe that the rise of social media has aggravated/exacerbated positive/negative causal outcomes, but is not being the direct “but for” cause which is what you’ve honed in on. There is a correlation, but that’s not relevant as you’ve stated.

Simply put, I think in this age, the rich get a lot richer, the poor get a lot poorer, a lot quicker, with the caveat that those with less of a voice in the past can capitalize on having a larger audience.

You don’t have to agree. Again, it’s just a theory. And I don’t think it’s provable. But to dig in your heels and take personal jabs at a stranger is a little bizarre. Regardless, we can keep going in circles if you like, there’s not much else to talk about.

Reported for reasonableness.

 

[Vol423]

It is my strong opinion we have been falling short in our recruiting classes for some time now. This baffles me since, with our nice facilities, we should be having consistent top 5/10 recruit groups.

Let me help give you a clue. The team not sucking for the overwhelming majority of their lifetime and placing many players in the NFL are FAR, FAR more important to recruits than the facilities.

 

[Carp]

Players want to play for big-time programs that win and develop players for the NFL.

Tennessee hired Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Jeremy Pruitt.

See the disconnect?

Yup. Had Kiffin stayed and built upon his first year's success, there's no doubt we'd have been pulling consistent top 10 classes. Let's not forget than even Butch was able to pull in a top 4 overall class, so players are definitely willing to come here for the right coach. We've just made terrible decisions.

 

[OrangeBeachVol]

Yup. Had Kiffin stayed and built upon his first year's success, there's no doubt we'd have been pulling consistent top 10 classes. Let's not forget than even Butch was able to pull in a top 4 overall class, so players are definitely willing to come here for the right coach. We've just made terrible decisions.

Agree with you on Kiffin to a degree. He was so immature at that time and Coach O was still out of control, they may have gotten us on serious NCAA probations within a couple of yrs. But agree with you that Kiffin had the most potential. Stupid AD Hamilton is the one that let Kiffin add that clause in his contract that the buyout would not apply if he left for SC. That should have been a red flag that was what he was planning to do. File this with the terrible decisions.

 

[37620VOL]

NIL is going to change everything in recruiting. We need to get creative and use it as a springboard back to relevance. Show recruits they can make big $ and you'll have to start turning down 4 stars.

 

[37620VOL]

Yup. Had Kiffin stayed and built upon his first year's success, there's no doubt we'd have been pulling consistent top 10 classes. Let's not forget than even Butch was able to pull in a top 4 overall class, so players are definitely willing to come here for the right coach. We've just made terrible decisions.

Most of Kiffin's guys were busts.

 

[sanefan]

You don't need a theory or a hypothesis for this. About half of the posters for me said it directly or in other ways. We stopped winning. Many of the posts talk about why we didn't win or contributing factors. They all add up to we have been winning.

Got it? We have not won.

Winning fixes everything.

This post makes you sound like the baseball coach who sits in the dugout and yells at the pitcher to throw strikes after he walks a batter instead of telling him why he is throwing balls.

Of course winning fixes most things and everybody here realizes we have not been winning. The reasons why we have not seem clear to me. Regardless of championships, we have not come close to winning relative to the talent recruited. That is coaching. Potential recruits notice that.

Maybe we hired the right coach to win relative to the talent on the roster, maybe not. We will not know how well he can recruit until he wins the games he should. Many on here downplay Saban as a coach because his roster indicates he should win almost every game. I would argue he gets the talent because he develops it. I hope we feel the same about JH in the next 2-3 years.

 

[Carp]

Most of Kiffin's guys were busts.

Kiffin and his staff didn't get much of a chance to develop those players since they bolted to USC in the middle of the night. But much of Dooley's first class were Kiffin's recruits. That included several NFL players and Tyler Bray.

 

[Longshank]

If all you are going to do is look at 2 losing seasons in 4 years and completely ignore everything else I said and the facts, then it’s like debating a prejudice person that black people should not be treated differently.

To say he had not accomplished much was to completely ignore the fact he won 9 games two years before he was fired and he won 10 games AND the SEC East the year before his last losing season. He had won 3-4 10+ seasons the 4 years prior to his first losing season EVER. All three of these seasons were division titles and one of which was an 11 win season.

Firing Fulmer and these limited perspectives and visions among those that make decisions is precisely why Knoxville, not just Tennessee, has struggled to be on top for so many years. Other cities and teams pass us by year after year. I’ve moved around and it is obvious how behind Knoxville and our program has been for decades.

Luckily, some are starting to realize people just don’t know what they are doing and we need to do something different.

I am not going to get into the city part, but with regards to football, firing Fulmer was the worst decision we have made as a football program. I already put his last 8 years into perspective, but not what happened since.

We fired a HOF fame coach who brought us the only national championship since 1967. NOONE that was or is any good has wanted to coach here since then because of that and because they don’t want to work with these people. IF we interview them, they take other jobs. I can’t believe we let Mullen slip through our fingers. Regardless, the last 13 years have simply been a big slice of karma pie because everyone got greedy. The greedy almost always eventually fall, and if they don’t learn their lesson they fall even further and the greedy are not limited to the rich.

These people are the same people that did not see the big picture when it came to letting Fulmer go and still had to look past an SEC Division Title to justify firing him. These people only looked at his last four years. These people are the same people that fired him without having a big named coach ready to take his place. These people are the same people who have struggled to make anything happen since.

Whoever has been making decisions since that time has been a cancer to our program and probably beyond. Period. That said, cancer can be healed and that would happen if whoever that is realizes sometimes things are good enough and starts supporting imperfection if it yields an SEC Eastern Division, a 9 win season and a losing season every three years which is what Fulmer produced his last 3 years. If we are able to do that, it means we are putting ourselves in a position to go further at least once every three years which is a hell of a lot more lucrative and exciting than the results we have seen since.

It wasnt letting go fulmer. It wasnt the Dooley hire. Very often elite or upcoming coaches dont want to replace a legend with a ring. It was the kiffin disaster that haunts Tennessee like the headless horseman. Regardless of who Tennessee hire then, that coach needed to have Tennessee a top 8 team year in and out to keep Tennessee football going.
Fulmer's time had passed. Go look up his record vs saban, Meyer and rhict and you will see why he got canned. He wasnt just losing, he was often being blown out in those games.
By this point fulmer had proven he could do less with more and these 3 coaches were beating him.
I was always worried tennesse would lose to an okay team at some point every year they were pretty good because they usually did.
His style of football with good defenses and a good running game still worked although it needed an update. his bulldog coaching style had to create a not fun work environment for everyone from school to coaches to players to even media and those 3 3 or 4 things are what did him in. Just like spurrier at florida or jumbo at florida state, most coaches hit a wall at schools and it's time to move on.

Hoping saban walks away soon.

 

[Lawrence Wright]

When did Rodney Garner leave UT?

He was not fun to recruit against back in the day.

 

[Longshank]

You are not looking at the big picture. You are looking at two losing seasons and calling what we would love to have mediocrity. Danny gets what I am saying. That is why Barnes got his extension. If we repeated Fulmer’s last 4 years 3 times over the last 12 since he was fired we would have three 9 win seasons, and 3 SEC Division titles. Furthermore, I don’t look at a person’s losing season if he wins the SEC division the year after. His second losing season was the head before he has a 10 win season and a 9 win season. You should be looking at his last 3 seasons if you want to get hyper focused about it and again, he did far better than anyone who has been willing to work here since we fired Fulmer and that is because we fired Fulmer. That’s right. People do not want to work here because we fired Fulmer and too many still support that decision.

Hopefully Huepel will fix a lot of our problems. I see him as being a consistent 8-9 win coach in the SEC before long. I hope he is better than that, but man he is up against some seasoned veterans. Once of which we let get away from us in Dan Mullen. More bad decisions at the top.

Except he was being out coached by Tennessee's 3 main rivals. Richt was 6-2 the last 2 wins by 61-28. Saban was 2-0 by 70-26. Meyer was 4-0 the first 2 were close games but the last 2 it was 89 to 26.
Fulmers time had past. It is what it is and was what it was. The screw up was the hires after not letting a coach go.

 

[TheDeeble]

When did Rodney Garner leave UT?

He was not fun to recruit against back in the day.

Last year for Tennessee was 97 I think. Went to Georgia in 98.

 

[CAVPUT]

My theory....we've sucked for the better part of the last 20 years. The brand is stale and we've got bums running the show that continue to hire loser after loser.

 

[CINCYVOL]

a couple a three things............

1. Fulmer got lazy!!!! he promoted an unknown in Randy Sanders to OC after Cutcliffe which caused the QB pipeline to dry up and then he hired a terrible OC replacement for Randy Sanders in Dave Clawsen, as he was unproven in power 5 and could not recruit QBs either. keep in mind, Ainge was a basketball player and an undeveloped football player that competed for the starting job with another freshman, post Casey Clausen......the QB cupboard was bare and Fulmer was unable to fill it with enough talent or experience to win big games. Also, see Jonathan Crompton for visual aid to these facts.

2. Fulmer was not able to directly recruit offensive players that could match the Florida's offense ability to score, as Florida was the only thing in Fulmer's way to win the East each year.

3. Fulmer relied on his tenure rather than his ability to compete on a year to year basis for his job security and called Mike Hamilton's bluff, which was the wrong strategy. Also see, Rod Delmonico.....

4. the 2001 team could of ran the table but Fulmer allowed Chavis to play prevent against M. Mauck an entire game while he ran QB draws up our ass to win the SEC championship. We routed Michigan in the bowl game

the reality is that Fulmer had a great 6 year run of recruits and loyal coordinators and expected it to last forever. when it didnt, he was unable to be successful.

5. Mike Hamilton was probably the worst AD ever.

 

[spyfish007]

This post makes you sound like the baseball coach who sits in the dugout and yells at the pitcher to throw strikes after he walks a batter instead of telling him why he is throwing balls.

Of course winning fixes most things and everybody here realizes we have not been winning. The reasons why we have not seem clear to me. Regardless of championships, we have not come close to winning relative to the talent recruited. That is coaching. Potential recruits notice that.

Maybe we hired the right coach to win relative to the talent on the roster, maybe not. We will not know how well he can recruit until he wins the games he should. Many on here downplay Saban as a coach because his roster indicates he should win almost every game. I would argue he gets the talent because he develops it. I hope we feel the same about JH in the next 2-3 years.

Sorry but that is changing the subject and taking my post out of context. The OPs thread title is theory for recruiting. You don't need a theory for that. If you want to talk about why we didn't win, then have that discussion.

 

[vegasvolfan]

Except he was being out coached by Tennessee's 3 main rivals. Richt was 6-2 the last 2 wins by 61-28. Saban was 2-0 by 70-26. Meyer was 4-0 the first 2 were close games but the last 2 it was 89 to 26.
Fulmers time had past. It is what it is and was what it was. The screw up was the hires after not letting a coach go.

That was because we were trying to install a new offense with the wrong personnel. Everyone knows that. You can’t turn a ship around overnight.

That said we beat Georgia and Alabama his second to last year and lost to Florida by 1 point. We also beat 10th ranked Georgia his last year. His time had hardly run out.