Embattled Tennessee Coach Fulmer Deserves a Break.

Lets start with a short history of University of Tennessee football.  The program started in 1891 and was known as being a perrenial loser.  In 1926 a young aide to General Douglas MacArthur at Westpoint took the TN coaching position...Robert Neyland.  In his first years his teams were 8-1, 8-0-1 and 9-0-1, including an upset of top-ranked Alabama.  This put Tennessee on the football map and Neyland went on coaching TN through 1952 amassing a .829 winning percentage and a record of 173-31-12; his best season being 1938 in which the team was 11-0 and won a National Championship. He took 5 years off to go to WWII, attaining the rank of Brigadier General.  During this time John Barnhill coached the team to an .846 winning percentage  with a record of 32-5-2.  This, incidentally, is the same John Barnhill who, after Neylands return from war,  left TN to become the coach and athletic director at Arkansas. He built their program and eventually hired legendary coach Frank Broyles as his replacement, .

Since Neyland, Tennessee football has had seven different coaches.  The most successful of them, by far, has been Phillip Fulmer with a record of 146-44.  He has been to four  SEC championship games (including this year - five), winning two and has an undefeated National Championship team to his credit in 1998.  His teams have finished in the top 10 in the year-end polls six times, the top 15 ten times and the top 25 thirteen times.  This year's team is currently #14.

Fulmer paid his dues as both a winning player under Doug Dickey at TN and as an assistant coach under Johnny Majors for 13 years, who he eventually replaced in 1992 when Majors' health was in question.  He has a reputation as an ace recruiter, leading many opposing coaches  and analysts to label him as one of college football's top recruiters.

He has lost to TN in-state rival Vanderbilt only once and has only once not taken the team to a bowl game...both in 2005 - his only losing season during his tenure posting a 5-6 record.  Despite that bad year, his winning percentage is still among the elite in the country for coaches with over 10 years experience.  Yet, since that year, many  fans have been campaigning for his removal and have taken their cause to fanatical extremes - even to the point of publically stating that they hope TN loses this season so that Fulmer will be replaced.

What if the fans in Neyland's era called for his removal during the seasons following his return from war in 1947 and 1948 his teams posted 5-5 and 4-4 records respectively?  What if they said, this is not the same coach who left to go to war...he's out of step and is losing to these younger coaches who are more innovative?  TN would have missed out on back to back National Championship years in 1950 and 1951 under Neyland, just before his retirement as coach and promotion to AD.

Let's compare Fulmer's numbers to other top coaches shall we:

He has a better winning percentage than Joe Paterno (.748), who has also faced his share of naysayers in his down years.  Joe has five losing seasons while at Penn State, but also two National Championships. He is the second winningest coach in history.  Who would argue that Paterno isn't one of football's great coaches. 

Fulmer has a better winning Percentage than Bobby Bowden(.762), who has one losing season to his credit at Florida State and two National Championships.  He is the winningest coach in history.  Who would argue that Bowden isn't a great football coach?

Let's compare his numbers to one of his similar-aged contemporaries in the same conference.  He has a better record than Steve Spurrier, who has one losing season and one National Championship under his belt with a .756 winning percentage.   Is Spurrier not considered a great coach?

Bottom line - Fulmer is a top notch coach, who has consistently kept Tennessee as one of the top teams in the country. He has helped to rally a team that was down early in this season to an improbable SEC Eastern Division Championship.  If the Vols win today, he will have led this same team to a BCS bowl.  TN has a great recruiting class coming in that want to play for him and by all accounts will keep TN in the National Picture for years to come.

Change for the sake of change is no good.  All teams are going to have an off year or two.  Noone is exempt from the occasional bad year and quality coaches are too hard to find - ask Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska and dozens of other schools about that.  The naysayers need only to compare the coaching records of others in their conference and around the country to begin to fully appreciate how good Fulmer has been and realize that their argument for his removal has no merit.