Congrats to Coach Fulmer. He won a ton of games, a National Championship, fell off late in his career, got a huge pile of money for his sorrow (at the beginning of the recession, this was hard to stomach), made some unfortunate comments which were somewhat correct, in hindsight, and now it's 4 years later. Congrats to Coach Fulmer.
One thing I don't understand is how in the hell he didn't capitalize on Spurrier leaving the SEC. I understand playing second fiddle to Spurrier because, well, he is one of the best of all-time. It pisses me off he let Helen Hunt come in and kick him in the nuts though.
From Johnathan Hefney on Twitter: As I have already said, I liked Fulmer, but it was painfully obvious that his time had come. I can see his former players being emotionally driven to make statements like this because he was their coach, but I don't really even think they could say the program was where it needed to be depth, talent, and coaching wise the last few years, if they looked at it objectively, which I doubt they have. At least he is right in his Dooley comment.
Ask Raymond Henderson what he thinks about Fulmer and see what he says. It would be a 180 from Hefney.
Ask John Finlayson too. I could also point you to a lot of managers, trainers, etc. that have some interesting opinions on him. If you want a real good laugh though, go somewhere in Maryville and ask the common working woman their opinion on Vicki.
I just wonder who he'll talk nice about in his speech. Pretty sure his demise was everyone else's fault...
Hefney couldn't tackle because he was a midget. He was, and I presume still is, and tremendously athletic little guy. He is also a prime example of someone who reached a plateau, and perhaps even regressed, before his final year on the Hill. I thought he was better as a Jr. than as a Sr. which doesn't really speak very well of his coaching.
I always thought Hefney looked his best as a freshman to be honest. It didn't help his senior year he had Eric Berry making amazing plays while Hefney whiffed on tackles.
What was he even kicked off for? Didn't he end up at Minnesota or something like that? Crazy how the '05 and '07 classes turned out. A third of them seemed to not even make it to campus.
Welcome to the 8th. Tell Red, Brooks, Heywood, Tommy, Warden Norton, and Officer Hadley hey. Congrats to Coach Fulmer. He allowed me to travel to Tempe to see the Vols win it all. For that, I will be eternally grateful.
enjoy: Vindicated Fulmer about to take deserved step into Hall of Fame - NCAA Football - CBSSports.com News, Scores, Stats, Schedule and BCS Rankings
" Fulmer says he has no regrets but Tennessee might after going 18-20 since replacing him. " Seems to imply Phil said Tennessee might have regrets, which he didn't. That article is pretty misleading. Makes it look as if Phil had one blip on his resume after an infallible 15 years and we fired him.
They didn't believe Fulmer, the old offensive lineman who preached the boring fundamentals of hard work, had the star power to hang with Saban, Meyer, Les Miles (LSU) and Mark Richt (Georgia).... And the new AD, Mike Hamilton, wasn't experienced enough or strong enough to stick with Fulmer when the tough times came. Tennessee fans wanted something new and exciting after listening to Fulmer for 16 years. They wanted a rock star coach like Alabama and Florida. Although I personally think Hamilton was a weak AD who contributed greatly to the demise of every program he oversaw, I'm going to have to consider this particular piece of Barnhart's work as revisionist bullshit.
