His discipline was lax. He did hire the "wrong OC"... in 1999. He then let that wrong OC preside over a steady decline in offensive talent and production. He kept that guy for 6 seasons until forced to fire him.
CPF would have been gone sooner had Cut not saved him from himself. His dink and dunk didn't really fix anything... it just slowed the bleeding.
Clawson didn't cause Fulmer's fall. He was a victim of it. It was Fulmer's players that were too dense to understand strong and weak vs left and right. It was Fulmer's players that couldn't throw or catch. Clawson's "system" worked everywhere else. I put that in quotes because he ran several different systems tailored to the talent he had. UT had little talent for him to work with by then. There's a reason that Clawson is now employed and Fulmer is not.
He began recruiting reputations and not players. He stopped doing his own work. IIRC, Kiffin was floored by how poor the recruiting research was that he inherited.
Go back and look at how badly overrated those classes ended up being. Look at the players... not the rankings.
They may have had talent but the vast majority either left the program (the wrong way) or failed to make meaningful contributions.
In the day when you could sign 32 players to pump up your ranking... Fulmer avg'd recruiting classes around 10th... Pretty much what Dooley did except Dooley's attrition has been far less.
No. That class was just a reflection of the fact that everyone knew he was no longer a serious rival to Richt, Saban, Miles, Meyer, Spurrier, etc.
Just use his 07 class as an example. (FTR, the busted 09 class was mostly his work too). There were five 5* players in that class. Sounds good, huh?
Chris Donald. Outright bust that finished as a backup at Chattanooga I think.
Ben Martin. Never made a significant contribution due to injuries.
Eric Berry. Greatness.
Brent Vinson. Never developed or contributed much due to discipline issues that Fulmer was unable or too lazy to work on.
Kenny O'Neal. One of the all time greatest busts.
There were 11 4* players. Sykes, Coleman, Langley, Creer, Melancon, Sawtelle, and Paige either left the program or never lived up to their rating. Jones, McKenzie, Willingham, and Walker contributed but were not drafted. D Moore is the only other player out of that class that I am aware of who is in the NFL.
Tell me you see "great coaching" in that. Either the players were that talented and the coaching stank, the players were overrated and the recruit evals stank... or some combination of BOTH.
Fulmer was very good in the 90's but became a bad coach. He stayed past his prime. Other coaches passed him by but he didn't change. He was never good with discipline. It hurt him in the later years... as we saw Cut was the disciplinarian Fulmer had to have.
He was not old when he was fired. It isn't just that he didn't get a job.... he wasn't even discussed for notable openings.
