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Fulmer’s firing was perfectly timed
By admin | November 28, 2008
By Jayson D. Henry
Only a short time of listening to Knoxville area sports talk radio or a quick check of sports message boards shows that at least some University of Tennessee football fans believe Phillip Fulmer’s mid season firing was poorly timed.
I believe Fulmer’s firing was well timed and I believe the events of the past few days prove that to be the case.
As was reported here a few weeks ago, Fulmer’s fate had been decided very early in the 2008 season. Prior to the Vols’ game against Georgia those who donate the big bucks, and thus apply pressure to the athletic department at UT, had decided they were tired of losing to rivals Florida, Alabama and Georgia. They had given the coach this season to turn that around and he failed miserably, not even offering serious competition in any of those games.
With that being decided, there was no point in putting off the inevitable.
Fulmer’s firing was officially announced the week before the game against Wyoming. At that time, Tennessee’s remaining schedule included Wyoming, Vanderbilt and Kentucky. That is not exactly a murderers row of opponents.
Tennessee had just lost to South Carolina the weekend before the firing was announced. That loss pushed the Vols’ record to 3-6. With three cupcake games remaining, Fulmer could have conceivably won out and made the team’s record 6-6 and thus, bowl eligible. Such a scenario could have prolonged the inevitable dismissal for as much a month beyond the regular season had those who wanted the announcement made after the season gotten their way.
As it turns out, of course, Wyoming beat Tennessee and made bowl eligibility impossible.
Also, as we have seen after this past week‘s victory over Vanderbilt, a few wins would have brought those who were wavering or who wanted to keep Fulmer around out of the woodwork. There would have been cries of, “He has the team headed in the right direction†and, “Look how much they improved†echoing across the airwaves of sports talk stations.
By making the announcement when he did, Athletic Director Mike Hamilton was able to go ahead with an aboveboard coaching search. And, as we have all heard by now, he will be able to have a coach in place immediately after the season ends when Lane Kiffin moves into the offices of the UT sports complex.
Kiffin’s hiring will give the Vols at least a fair chance at landing recruits that might have been otherwise lost had the coaching search only just begun on December 1st.
So, considering what has happened and what could have happened, Mike Hamilton and the UT athletic department made a good decision by going ahead and firing Phillip Fulmer when they did.
Jayson D. Henry is a guest blogger for RacingWithRich.com. Reach Jayson either by commenting below or by e-mail at neverenoughsports@yahoo.com.
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November 29th, 2008 at 4:40 am
The University of Florida’s athletic director, Jeremy Foley, has a saying that he uses to explain his philosophy about coaching changes. It’s pretty plain and to the point. Paraphrased, its basically says “Why wait until tomorrow to do something that should be done today.”
He used that philosophy when he cut Ron Zook loose. If he waited until the end of the 2004 season, Urban Meyer would more than likely be in South Bend presiding over the resurgence of Notre Dame.
As a UF fan, I would have liked to see Phil stay at UT for another decade or so. However, Tennessee fans deserve to have someone in that position who can not only recruit but develop those student athletes to the best of their ability. While Fulmer had some great moments in Knoxville, its become apparent over the last several years that he had not kept up. After Spurrier left UF in January 2002, UT was poised to take over the SEC East. In my opinion, Fulmer’s inability to capitalize on that power vacuum was his biggest failure.