For a few moments last Saturday, I felt that Fulmer had quite possibly done enough against Georgia to save his job. After all, Tennessee completely dominated the Dawgs, right? Reclaimed Neyland from a team accustomed to beating us in our house... shown a renewed commitment to the run and the ability to stop the run... those things were what we were looking for, weren't they?
But luckily, I listened to the call-in shows after the game. I say "luckily" because the enlightenment coming over the airwaves was, um, enlightening. Why did we almost nearly, but not really but kind of let Georgia back into the game? Why didn't we score 50 points? Why didn't they let Crompton throw about 20 passes? It's simple, Fulmer needs to go, and now.
I mean, look at the numbers from the UGa game: we held Georgia to two first downs in the first half, but they ended the game with 14. That's seven times as many as they had in the first half. We punted twice in the first half, and four times in the second. That's an increase of 160%! I think, I'm not really good at math. But think of this, in the last two quarters of football, we've been outscored 14-7. There's a clear erosion of the program that started at about 5:15 pm last Saturday, and we can't stand for it.
The most danging piece of evidence I have against Fulmer, though, is this picture. Just look at it. What is he doing? Going for a fist bump when obviously the assistant is leading with a high-five? Can't he get on the same page as the coaches on his staff? And is he wearing a championship ring? How dare he, when he hasn't won one of those in ten, er, nine... what is it, eight years! The audacity!
I mean, he's got to go, right? Otherwise, all of us who doubted Fulmer a month ago, especially me, would have to admit we were wrong, and that he does in fact still know what he's doing, and that he does still have a few tricks up his sleeve. And we can't have that, can we?