Fulmer and the Media

Note to self, positive energy is no guarantee of a great season.

“I like the positive energy around this football team and the way they’ve gone about the offseason and spring practice and summer program, but even with that there’s no guarantees that that is going to lead to a great season,” Fulmer said.

Let me ask you this. Does Coach Fulmer actually have to remind us that there are no guarantees of a great season? I mean, is he talking to us or reminding himself?

Let’s look at another quote. Maybe this quote from last years media day was considered a guarantee:

“It’s very difficult to argue with the folks who think we have a chance to be good,”

As we all know, we weren’t good. My conclusion: just because Fulmer says it doesn’t make it so. Wait a minute, I think we all already knew that.

I would really like to know when Fulmer’s ability to deal with the media took a sudden turn for the worse. It hasn’t always been this way. Does Fulmer think his comments last season during fall practice make a 5-6 record worse than it is? I think a losing record stands on its own merit regardless of the coaches comments on the team. Does Fulmer think vague comments on this years team will bail him out of another losing season? I think not.

I have never been happy with the fact that Coach Fulmer has been closing practices the last few seasons. It’s not like we have been preparing a new top secret high octane offense. It’s Tennessee for crying out loud. Everyone already knows most of what we do before we do it. Where are the days that we took pride in the fact that we could line up and tell you that we are running to the left side, try and stop us?

I support Coach Fulmer 100% but I wish he would just tell it like it is. He needs to tell us what he thinks and not be too concerned about being quoted later. Fulmer and many others thought last years team could be a title contender. They were wrong. We are all wrong from time to time but we can’t let that stop us from putting ourselves out there.

Fulmer cautious with praise at Tennessee Media Day