What I hope happens if Phillip Fulmer isn't Tennessee's coach after this season

But if it comes to it I’d also like that to be a decision the new head coach makes, not one that coincides with the one made about the head coach.

If the new coach gets along with Chavis, I think his performance has been good enough to warrant keeping his job (we can agree to disagree on this point I think). If they don’t get along, he should go too though.

Remember we’re talking three decades of service—yeah service—to the University of Tennessee. Whatever money Tennessee has put into Phillip Fulmer….they have gotten a much more substantial return. Heck, he donated a million into either the VASF or the University not too long ago.

I’m not saying that he and his family is going to starve—-and I will throttle anybody who makes a joke here—if they don’t pay him the buyout or if he declines. It’s just that I feel like he has perhaps earned it.

There’s a novel concept. An outgoing coach actually deserving his buyout. Consider that most buyouts are payed to short timers (we’ll say less than the intial contract) that can’t produce any immediate results. The AD’s pull the plug because they believe they can get better results elsewhere. This is not the case here. In this case, we are talking about a man who has literally devoted his career to Tennessee and taken it to the promised land. This is not an Orgeron or Shula or Donnan or Zook. This is a coach who has reached levels most have not. My point is this: if those kinds of coaches should and do recieve buyouts for getting the rug pulled out from underneath them, WHY ON EARTH SHOULD PHILLIP FULMER NOT RECEIVE HIS??

Yeah its going to be rough financially but that’s the way it goes. If he is pressured to "decline’ his buyout how on earth can UT expect to recruit coaching talent?

BUT, and I’ll keep saying this, I disagree with you about Chavis. That defense is playing their hearts out wvvol. Chavis is doing a great job of coaching them. Its not their fault they are surrounded by complete and utter ineptitude.

Simply said, the offense and special teams (I’m even including Britton here) does not deserve this defense. There isn’t a defense in football right now that can make up for the shortcomings of this offense. 6, 12, 14, and 9 points in our four SEC losses. I’m sorry but you can’t ask a defense to overcome those numbers against teams like Florida, Georgia, a similarly inept Auburn, and Bama.

I agree, It will and should be up to a new coach to decide whether or not to retain Chavis. I get that. I just want to be clear in stating that my sole happy place this season has been watching the defense play their butts off. And I think that reflects well on Chief.

But the Vols lost… He didn’t put ESPN Glory above Big Orange blood, did he?

:-P

. . . see, I, uh, want to encourage folks to participate in those games, so, um, I don’t really try too hard so that my brilliant success doesn’t discourage anyone.

Yeah. Uh-huh.

And oh, if you mean what do I think of rusty’s post, then I think it’s fantastic, which is why I bumped it to the front. Just in time to be picked up for top-billing on GVX’s blogger roundup. Guess I owe rusty dinner or something.

I think while CPF has done great things, PSU fans were tolerant of JoePa’s down years because he was about to be the winningest coach of all time. I also think it’s easier to hide a mediocre program in the Big Ten than the SEC.

Not all BCS conference head coaches are coordinators anymore, most are CEO types. Mike Gundy still calls the plays at Oklahoma State and doesn’t really pay much attention to what the defense is doing, but that’s the exception. Mike Leach handles the offense at Texas Tech.

Regarding Clawson, it might be that his offense doesn’t work against FBS defenses. At least it hasn’t this year.

Is 1) Georgia had the offense pegged to the tune of knowing where the Vols were going to run 80 percent of the time, and 2) the scheme against Bama was dreadful and predictable, even after what happened against UGA.

What I don’t know is how this happened; whether Clawson is on a leash, or whether he is calling the shots and is just that predictable.

I’ve been very supportive of Clawson this season, and I really really really really want the guy to succeed. The coaching realm needs more people like him. But I also fear that this may shape up to be his only year with with UT, which may be a high-end career killer for him. (He’ll always be available for 1-AA, which is still a great gig if you can get it.)

I think his future will depend on how UT goes to bat for him in the future. If the university insists that the season wasn’t his fault, he’ll recover. If they make him the scapegoat (I hope not, but you know how these things work), he’s done at the major level. He doesn’t even have a $2,000 book to fall back on.

But whoever gets the scoop on Clawson’s season will have the ears of many Vols fans. We’re all dying to know whether we’ve even seen the Clawfense.

Like rusty noted, we were predictable. That was exactly what Clawson was not supposed to be, and why he was hired. It seems so odd to me that he’d get hired if teams can peg him this well this quickly, which is why I don’t really think we’ve seen what he wants to do with the offense yet.

Of course, having an ugly QB change in the middle of it all hasn’t helped much either.

There’s a little skepticism to your caution on Fulmer, but I’ll take it at face value. There’s a great point behind it either way.

UT needs to make sure that the decision on the future is based on the future, not on the past. If the program is indeed on the verge of a breakout and Fulmer (and company) is the crew needed to get it there, then they should stay. If not, then not. The trick is that UT will have to find a justifiable reason to make their decision. Even though Stephens will be a vet when the season starts next year, he’ll have five brand new linemen in front of him. That may sound like a good thing, given the way things are going, but it rarely is. The defense will be very young, but we’re still looking thin along the line. I have the spooks about how things will be next year with such inexperience along both lines and with little depth behind them.

As for the understanding: most Vols fans kinda wish that had been the understanding, rather than the 8-4 minimum that’s in his contract already.

I’ve decided to take a neutral position on it since it’s not like I have any control over it anyway. I’ll support the program regardless of what it decides. But there are lot of people who wouldn’t, and their money is as green as mine.

One more year would just provide further evidence of what is already clear. The line of best fit has had a negative slope for a decade now. No need to add in more dots.

The man made a lot of money as the head coach at UTK. We, as fans, owe him nothing more than a round of applause at his retirement ceremony.