Fulmer wasn’t the slickest public speaker in the world, and he had a few speech crutches. “Looking at film” was his way of stalling questions about performance, especially when he didn’t want to publicly criticize a player. People who got tired of Fulmer used this to make fun of him, and it got picked up by the community at large when the Vols struggled.

It was mostly childish.

But it was way overused by Fulmer, as much as I loved him. It seemed like that was the most enlightening answer we could get from him at times, and it turned into a running joke. Kiffin mentioning it just brought those memories back is all. I don’t think Rusty was criticizing Kiffin for watching film.