Cutcliffe's impact on the Vols

#1
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immyaxl

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#1
A friend of mines brother played on the 98 national championship team. This guy was a starting D lineman. He told me Cutcliffe was responsible for recruiting him as well as many of the players on that team. Basically Cutcliffe was the coach the players liked and the reason for a lot of their success! He said Cutcliffe was twice the coach Fulmer was.
 
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#2
#2
immyaxl said:
A friend of mines brother played on the 98 national championship team. This guy was a starting D lineman. He told me Cutcliffe was responsible for recruiting him as well as many of the players on that team. Basically Cutcliffe was the coach the players liked and the reason for a lot of their success! He said Cutcliffe was twice the coach Fulmer was.
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Think Cutcliffe is a really good coach and was a great asset to Fulmer, but these after the fact anecdotes annoy me. Not a lot of people supported hiring Cutcliffe because the rap on him was that he wasn't a recruiter. Now six years later he was a great recruiter? I mean I agree now after the fact he would have been better than either Kiffin or Dooley but not many were voicing their support for him at the time.
 
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#5
#5
Sandvol said:
Think Cutcliffe is a really good coach and was a great asset to Fulmer, but these after the fact anecdotes annoy me. Not a lot of people supported hiring Cutcliffe because the rap on him was that he wasn't a recruiter. Now six years later he was a great recruiter? I mean I agree now after the fact he would have been better than either Kiffin or Dooley but not many were voicing their support for him at the time.
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A former player said he was a great recruiter.
 
#9
#9
immyaxl said:
A friend of mines brother played on the 98 national championship team. This guy was a starting D lineman. He told me Cutcliffe was responsible for recruiting him as well as many of the players on that team. Basically Cutcliffe was the coach the players liked and the reason for a lot of their success! He said Cutcliffe was twice the coach Fulmer was.
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One man's opinion. Fulmer was every bit as loved as Cutcliffe and Fulmer was not a good, but a great OL coach in his own right. HC may be a different story, but I know this... they were 2 parts of a great staff that took UT to unprecedented heights not known since General Neyland's teams. Heights vaginabilt has never, and clearly never will know.
 
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#10
#10
I don't think he was a starter if I remember correctly. Shaun Ellis, John Henderson, Darwin Walker, Billy Ratliff, Corey Terry I think were the main D linemen. But, he probably did get some playing time.
 
#11
#11
immyaxl said:
A friend of mines brother played on the 98 national championship team. This guy was a starting D lineman. He told me Cutcliffe was responsible for recruiting him as well as many of the players on that team. Basically Cutcliffe was the coach the players liked and the reason for a lot of their success! He said Cutcliffe was twice the coach Fulmer was.
Click to expand...
Cutcliff was a great offensive coordinator IMO.
He was a notoriously bad recruiter both here and at Ole Miss IMO and has always struck me as not being good head coach material for that reason. He has done a great job at Duke. He and Fulmer had different roles - his required more hands on coaching. Everyone likes the coach that recruited them - this is somewhat of a universal truth. Cutcliff really crippled our program both times that he left. Not his fault - but very bad timing both times he left.
 
#17
#17
immyaxl said:
Last name Ridely
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reggie has hard feelings. he was not quite good enough to get in the rotation while up there. good guy, but not all that talented a football player.

so those comments not surprising.

I seriously doubt Cut recruited many but QBs.. He and Chief did little on the recruiting front... they typically recruited when the kids came on visits.. positions coaches were key recruiters.
 
#19
#19
immyaxl said:
A friend of mines brother played on the 98 national championship team. This guy was a starting D lineman. He told me Cutcliffe was responsible for recruiting him as well as many of the players on that team. Basically Cutcliffe was the coach the players liked and the reason for a lot of their success! He said Cutcliffe was twice the coach Fulmer was.
Click to expand...

I think Cutcliffe is a great QB coach and obviously he's a great x and o guy on offense. Prior to coming to coach at UT, he was a high school coach. By the time he worked himself to TE coach, Walt Harris was the OC.

In his six years, Harris helped the Vols to two nine win seasons and one ten win season. After a disappointing 5-6 season, Harris moved on and Fulmer became the OC for the "89 season. (Incidentally, Randy Sanders was the QB in 1988.)

29-6-2. That's Johnny Major's best 3 seasons and Fulmer was the OC for those three, '89-'91.

1992 was the year Majors was hospitalized, Fulmer went 4-0 in his absence, the rest is history.

In '93 Cutcliffe becomes Fulmer's OC. Cut's already been on the staff for 10 years!

From '93 to '98, the Vols went 63-11! Of course, '98 was the year that the "National Champions are clad in ORANGE!"

Cut would leave, in '99, for Ole Miss and the torch was passed to Sanders.

Offensively, a lot of principles were passed down. Obviously, when you're talking about Majors, Fulmer, Sanders, Chavis and the like, you're talking about quite a bit of football philosophy being passed down from the General himself.

The terminology of the offense was passed down too and that kind of stability is an advantage. This is not to say that Cut didn't bring anything new to the table, offense is always evolving...but he could keep it within the frame work of what everyone already knew because he'd been with the program for so long.

Obviously, if Archie Manning wants you to coach his sons, he has a lot of faith in you. Look where Manning went to throw after his neck surgery.

The truth is, Fulmer and Cut and Chavis were good together. They are obviously fine football coaches and gave their all, VFL etc...
 
#21
#21
immyaxl said:
A friend of mines brother played on the 98 national championship team. This guy was a starting D lineman. He told me Cutcliffe was responsible for recruiting him as well as many of the players on that team. Basically Cutcliffe was the coach the players liked and the reason for a lot of their success! He said Cutcliffe was twice the coach Fulmer was.
Click to expand...
I didn't know vandy fans had friends
 
#22
#22
Fullfillmer said:
Cutcliff was a great offensive coordinator IMO.
He was a notoriously bad recruiter both here and at Ole Miss IMO and has always struck me as not being good head coach material for that reason. He has done a great job at Duke. He and Fulmer had different roles - his required more hands on coaching. Everyone likes the coach that recruited them - this is somewhat of a universal truth. Cutcliff really crippled our program both times that he left. Not his fault - but very bad timing both times he left.
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You do know he recruited Peyton Manning at UT and Eli at Ole Miss? This makes him a bad recruiter? I'd say leading Duke to the ACC Championship game would be a huge accomplishment as a head coach. Kudos to him.
 
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