Talking Points: So Phillip Fulmer, Mike Hamilton, and John Adams walk into a bar . . .

So somebody asked Phillip Fulmer over the weekend what in the world's happened to Tennessee football over the past five years. He must have thought that enough time and enough coaches had gone by that it was safe to answer. Oops.

Here's the money quote from The Papa in its entirety:

"What happened to us basically was our leadership. We had four presidents in six years. We ended up with an athletic director that wasn't prepared for the job. Not a terrible guy or anything like that. He got twisted like a pretzel by the middle management of the university. We lost a lot of the edges that you have to have. (Current athletic director) Dave Hart's very aware of those, and he's working to change things. We didn't get dumb or lazy all of a sudden. There were obviously some things that were different.

"When you have a great president and a great athletic director and you replace them with substandard people that have no idea, what do you expect is going to happen? And you do that three other times? It's crazy."

Yeah, so his explanation is that Mike Hamilton was in over his head. Okay. He's not alone in that assessment.

But the quote made John Adams feel nostalgic for the good old days of taking Fulmer to task, and he was defenseless against the irresistible tug to get back out on safari, so he wrote this piece on GVX. It's pretty awesome when you can fill your daily quota solely with material from the archives.

To be fair, Adams is not alone in his assessment of Fulmer, just as Fulmer's not alone in his assessment of Hamilton. I guess the lesson to be learned is this: When someone asks you to play Truth or Dare, the only way to win is not to play.

More on the Smokey Grays. A survey of almost 10,000 folks reveals that most folks either like or are okay with the alternate jersey. Even Cuonzo Martin has called them "smooth," and is open to the idea of something similar for the basketball Vols this fall. He did shoot down the camo jerseys that adidas proposed and did for Louisville and some other adidas schools last year, but those were presumably "not smooth." The Hoops team, by the way, got a commitment from power forward CJ Turman this weekend.

And down the stretch they come. The QB race is still, well, that. True freshman Josh Dobbs apparently wowed people who woo'd for him Saturday night by juking a defender during a scramble and then hit a nice 45-yard strike to receiver Drae Bowles. Jones pumped the brakes on the woos pretty quickly, though, calling that merely "encouraging" and saying that what he really, really, really wants from his QBs is to "do the routine stuff with consistency."

#EYES. Announcing the All New Butch Jones Hashtag of the Day, #EYES! Yes, coach Jones is all about "eye discipline" and "eye violations," which occur when his defenders have "wandering eyes." This is the opposite of "see a little, see a lot," which is also known as "focusing on your keys." Basically, do your job and focus on your guy and your things only. Expect the other guys to do the same, and all will be well. #EYES

And the big, fat strong guys in the middle will lead them. Jones has mentioned Corey Miller, Ja'Wuan James, James Stone, and Alex Bullard as the guys who are stepping forward as leaders. He does say that he needs more.