Fire Fulmer. It is the only way out of this.

mhamilton@utk.edu or mhamilton@tennessee.edu

Here is my letter to Hamilton:

Dear Mr. Hamilton,

I am sure your email is full of "FIRE FULMER" memos this morning and you are probably getting the point by now. I also understand that you are a busy person and just because the Vols lose to a top five team is certainly no ground to fire an individual.

Coach Fulmer has done a lot for the program. He has taken us to four SEC title games and won half of them. He assisted in recruiting and developing the greatest player in school history and brought us a National Championship. He played for the Volunteers, graduated from the University of Tennessee; and you could really say he is Tennessee Football.

However, the performance on the field Saturday is unacceptable. Watching our Volunteers get embarrassed on national television was unbearable. The team showed that it was ill prepared to play the game. If this was just one incident it would be understandable, but the way the game unfolded has been a constant theme over the last four or five years.

From the poor tackling to the terrible coverage on special teams, is fundamental football not being taught at Tennessee? With the poor performance of the special teams over the past decade; why has a special teams coach not been hired? Once upon a time no one in the country could match Tennessee's special team units. Now we rank dead last in the nation in kickoff return coverage by 24.6 yards more than the next to last place team.

The effort of the team on Saturday was not the problem, the game plan was. The lack of preparedness and ability to execute fundamentals also came back to bite the Vols.

No one is perfect and I understand that Erik Ainge isn't Peyton Manning, but with the small downgrade (and I mean small) the lack of coaching fundamentals is even more obvious.

Your advised changes after the 2005 season seemed to breathe fresh air into the program, however it turns out that the changes were just a quick fix. The only coach on the staff that has shown consistent results is Coach Taylor.

Coach Fulmer is and outstanding person and he loves the University of Tennessee, as do we all. I think we let the rest of the season pan out and quietly ask him to step down and then honor him as we do General Neyland. I just don't want to see happen to Coach Majors happen to him, but it is becoming apparent that the game is slowly passing Coach Fulmer by and it is time to go in a new direction.

Big Orange nation has full confidence that you and the committee can find another gem in the rough as you did with Coach Pearl.

Go Big Orange,
William T. Smith

..for your expression of the exact emotions that filled my weekend.  It's too easy to call for Coach's head and i will not do so here.   Clearly,  the Florida program has left us in the dust.  I have a feeling Coach Fulmer is considering a gracious exit at season's end.  

My earliest memories of Tennessee football are from the 1960's and 1970's - Doug Dickey, The Swamp Rat, The Orange Bowl loss to Oklahoma, the classic games with Auburn and Alabama, Bobby Majors, Tim Priest, Conrad Graham taking an oski all the way back in his first start against Penn State, Lester McClain, Steve Kiner, Hacksaw Reynolds, Bill Rudder, Philip Fulmer, SEC Championships, the loss to the "Mules" at Ole Miss, Jackie Walker intercepting a pitchout and returning it for a TD, 11 straight losses to Alabama, winning in the rain and mud on Curt Watson's shoulders at Athens, Bill Battle, "When Johnny Comes (Came) Marching Home."  

Then the 1980's - Herschel's first game, incredible inconsistency, so many highs and lows, destroying Auburn in "The Loveliest Village," the sweetest of breaking the Alabama stranglehold, "Jonathan Jones, from Mumford, Tennessee, takes the pitch and goes all the way!" (John Ward) at Legion Field, the Sugar Bowl demolition of the Miami Hurricanes behind Daryl Dickey, and Lee Greenwood (the home crowd at the Sugar Bowl going crazy when he hit "to the Hills of Tennessee)" Willie Gault.  

The 1990's - the comeback at Notre Dame, the addition of two new teams to the SEC in 1992 and the loss that year to South Carolina, THE FIRING, PEYTON MANNING, TEE MARTIN, THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. The unfortunately few victories against Florida since divisional play - but we kicked their ass in the storm in the early 1990's in Knoxville.  

The pomp and circumstance that is Big Orange Football - finally, JOHN WARD - "It's Football Time in Tennessee" always, always made me cry.

What the hell has happened?

In all those years I have never seen a Tennessee team so lifeless and so adrift as the one on the field against Florida last Saturday - apparently leaderless at both the coaching and players level.  Fulmer sighing on the sidelines, just waiting to get on the plane back to Knoxville.  Excuses, excuses, excuses.  No leadership, no plan, no adjustments.

Can you imagine what Jack Reynolds, or Al Wilson, or Reggie White, or Peyton Manning would have done in the fourth quarter Saturday?  Of course, with those guys, we would not have ever been in that situation.

Win or lose, I have always been proud to be a Vol.  Saturday, I was absolutely humiliated.  We have lost the respect of the college football world.  Florida was faster, better coached, executed better, capitalized on mistakes - they had the "killer" attitude that we have been missing for several years now.  Under Fulmer, Tennessee lost 14 games in the 1990's and, so far, 29 in the 2000's.  Bad trend.

Leadership of any organization starts at the top.

With much respect for Coach Fulmer's past accomplishments, and with much honor for a man who has bled orange more than anyone in the history of the program since he left Franklin County, I believe it is time for a new (rocky) top at Tennessee.

 

...that we do still have a chance at winning the East and that there is some hope to salvage the season. We got Ark. St. this weekend -- should, and I repeat SHOULD, be a win -- and then we got a week off to work on things before Georgia and the rest of our season.

Now, here comes a little venting action...

LaMarcus Coker should be our starting running back and be utilized as much as possible. Period. He is, as it has been said many times, a dynamic player with playmaking ability every time he touches the ball. There is no reason, especially how little we run, why he shouldn't carry the ball every time a running play is called. Foster (sorry, Arian) is not as explosive as Coker is and should only be brought in on short yardage and goal-line situations. Is Montario Hardesty still hurt??

Who, and I repeat WHO told Ainge he could hand the ball off like that!? I am absolutely dumbfounded that that wasn't corrected. Unbelievable. I understand his pinkey finger is broken, but I think he can manage to hand the ball of with the proper hand when we only run the ball 20 times a game. (Might be an exaggerated number, but it certainly didn't feel like much more than that)