Talking Points: Was the Bruce Pearl Era a Failure?

by Joel Hollingsworth on May 24, 2011 7:46 AM EDT in Rocky Top Talking Points

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER. Many of today's news items use yesterday's firing of Todd Raleigh merely as a place to jump off on Mike Hamilton. Team Speed Kills notes, among other things, that Tennessee is now paying over $7 million dollars to former coaches in all three of its major men's sports. John Adams says that some enterprising individual is likely to make a bunch of t-shirts featuring the phrase "Mike Hamilton paid me to leave." Not a bad idea, actually.

That's all fine; Hamilton's had a rough few years and has presided over a largely-disappointing decade on Rocky Top. But is there something a little funky here? Mark Wiedmer leads his piece off with this:

If you’re scoring at home, University of Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton now is 0-3 in hiring a coach either willing or capable of remaining at least seven years in his three most important men’s programs.

That rubbed me the wrong way, and it took me awhile to figure out why. Isn't seven years actually a fairly long tenure for coaches in this day and age? But Wiedmer had to use that particular time frame to make the point he wanted to make, which is that Hamilton is 0-3 in the major programs. The Case for Failure is easy to make when it comes to Lane Kiffin and Todd Raleigh, but is lumping Bruce Pearl in with them fair? It ended badly, yeah, but is six years of unprecedented success entirely undone by how it all ended? Would you really rather Bruce Pearl had never been hired? Reasonable minds can differ, but this one is shouting an emphatic no.

TENNESSEE BASKETBALL. VolQuest suggests that Tennessee fans look past the win/loss record in 2011-12 when judging the basketball team. Halcyon Hoops is on essentially the same theme and has a nifty infographic to bolster the point.

ETCETERAS. Florida has won a record eighth SEC Championship this season. I hate those guys. . . . UT Chaplain Roger Woods: "I grew up on drugs. My parents drug me to church. They drug me to Sunday school. Anything that involved church, they drug me to." . . . Offensive lineman Alan Posey is up to 320 pounds and is taking Chad Clifton's number. I hope he, like Clifton, makes the NFL so we can see how many headlines contain the words "Posey's Pockets." . . . BRACE FOR HERESY: Does Eric Berry throw like a girl?

Poll

Does the way the Bruce Pearl Era ended make you regret the hire?

Yes

24 votes

No

270 votes

294 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

I do love me some beefcake O-Linemen

but my goodness, an 18- or 19-year old kid at 320 pounds? Does anyone else on this site read any of Gregg Easterbrook’s articles on ESPN Page 2? The college kids see NFL linemen bulking up to 320, 330, 340, so they assume they need to get hognosed up so they will get drafted. High school kids see these college and NFL guys bulking up, so they feel the need to increase mass as well.

Like I said, I love me some biggies on the O-Line. But at some point, kids pushing the 300+ pound barrier has to have some negative health effects on down the line. I guess when you’ve got a Jadevon Clowney coming off the edge at your elite QB, you’ve gotta have a massive OT who dances like a bear to deflect him. I just wonder “how big is too big?” when it comes to these kids and the potential health problems in the future should they not make it to the NFL.

Go. Big. Orange.

by pound the rock on May 24, 2011 9:18 AM EDT reply actions

All I will say on lineman size

is that I wish the NFL would grandfather in a weight limit. Maybe start with 320 pounds and back it down every few years until it’s 300 at the absolute top. That much weight isn’t good for people of NFL age, even.

But the NFL will never do anything that might inhibit their precious offenses.

by David Hooper on May 24, 2011 11:00 AM EDT up reply actions

Also

I would love to read a Q&A with Jordan McRae to see where he’s at mentally going into his soph year. He had to experience some serious attitude issues last year to entrench himself so firmly in the doghouse.

That kid just looks like he can ball. Trae Golden barely scratched the surface of his talent last year. He scored points at will in high school. I trust Coach ’Zo to get these kids to buy into his “D-UP!” philosophy, and maybe they can get back to scoring points in bunches off of transition.

No way I see Pearl’s tenure as a failure. This was going to be a lean year even if Pearl had been retained. I was a student during the Houston Era, so I was in the front seat of the Pearl Bandwagon Rocketship these last 6 years. He raised UT’s profile one step below the nation’s elite, so the foundation is there if ’Zo can squeeze good effort out of these players.

by pound the rock on May 24, 2011 9:26 AM EDT reply actions

I'm really not sure what the NCAA could do to us

to make the majority of UT fans, or even a significant minority, regret the hire and the memories of the last six years. If we lose several scholarships and Cuonzo never really pans out, Pearl might deserve some of the blame for that, but Cuonzo will be the one who really bears it. If Cuonzo turns out to be a terrible hire, it’ll probably end up making Pearl look even better in hindsight.

I think Hamilton is responsible for some of the bad philosophy behind the Kiffin hire, and definitely the decision to ignore inexperience with the Raleigh hire. But the Dooley hire was the one most criticized at the time, so it’s funny that he’s become the poster boy for Hamilton. Pearl wasn’t a dirty cheater who flagrantly broke rules for several years that Hamilton just let run loose – Kiffin did more of that in one year than Pearl in six. I blame Pearl for what Pearl did – Hamilton made an A+ hire, who turned around and got an F- for judgment in one very important situation. Overall the Pearl Era will always be good, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to antagonize or is just making a really bad argument.

Rocky Top Talk

by Will Shelton on May 24, 2011 10:21 AM EDT reply actions

Not a huge Pearl fan, but...

I agree his hire and tenure were a success and if you could roll back the bad decisions wish he were still here.

I can also still justify the Kiffin hire. I think it would have, like Pearl, been successful, entertaining and highly contriversial had USC not come calling. It would have also probably left a wake of issues in the eventual seperation. Dooley is a better fit culturally. Hopefully he can revive the program.

by phil g on May 25, 2011 6:16 PM EDT up reply actions

Funny how Hamilton's personnel decisions are judged

based on the current popularity of the coach, for the most part, rather than the information available at the time of the decision. Firing Fulmer was the right thing to do then, because he was really unpopular. Now that his unpopular edge has worn off in light of subsequent events, he’s not such a bad guy and maybe we should have stuck by him.

Kiffin is, and will always remain a villain for what he did to the program, but that’s not so much my concern as the due diligence Hamilton apparently lacked in researching Kiffin’s past as well as his intentions for the future. Noone expected Carroll to jump to the pros, but we could have known that USC was Kiffin’s dream job, and that alone would’ve been enough to pass on him.

Despite owning a national championship ring, Bruce Pearl’s hire was received lukewarmly. However six years later, we’re all on board with that decision. Dooley was probably even more of a head-scratcher, but I think most of us are at least accepting his appointment after he took us to a bowl and delivered us a workable roster. Martin is obviously still a question mark, but I think a decent amount of fans believe like they do with Dooley that there weren’t any better candidates available.

by k-love on May 27, 2011 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions