It has long been argued by Phillip Fulmer's critics that while he is a great recruiter, perhaps the best head coach recruiter in college football history, he has been out-coached many times in the big games. It's hard to argue with the success Fulmer has had. While he has only one national championship to show for his 13 years at the helm of the Volunteer program, he has won 6 SEC East crowns and is one of the winningest active football coaches in America.

Similarly, Pat Summitt is an icon in women's college basketball. She became the winningest coach in the history of the game this past season. She has recruited perhaps the best class in America last year, even though several of them went down to knee injuries. There is no question that she knows how to get the top talent to come to Knoxville.

Yet, for all their success, many question the coaching abilities of both these legends. Fulmer has a losing record against Steve Spurrier, Mark Richt, and Nick Saban. Summitt has a losing record against Geno Aueriama.

Both Fulmer and Summitt have suffered devastating defeats recently. Summitt lost to a decidedly inferior Michigan State team in the semi-finals of this year's Final Four. She lost to a team that had great X's & O's coaching, including one of her own former staff, Al Brown. Prior to this season's collapse in which he lost to Vanderbilt for the first time in 22 years, missed a bowl game for the first time as head coach, and turned in a 5-6 record after being ranked near the top nationally, Fulmer suffered a blowout home loss to Georgia as recently as 2003. Consecutive Peach Bowl losses that year and in 2004 to inferior ACC teams still make Vol fans cringe.

Summitt has always left a lot of the coaching to her assistants. Holly Warlick is the only long-term staff member she has left now that Brown and Micky DeMoss have left for other positions. Failure to call timeouts at critical junctures in the MSU game last spring may have proved fatal to U.T.'s chances of winning their seventh national championship under Summitt.

Fulmer has been loyal to his staff to a fault until he was finally forced to replace some of them this year. Many NFL scouts have observed that while the talent gets recruited to Tennessee, it doesn't get developed properly. While that doesn't result in fewer draft choices for U.T. athletes, it does mean they are by and large being drafted in lower rounds than they were in the Johnny Majors era when Majors' staff, many of whom went on to top NFL jobs, were coaching up the talent that came to Knoxville.

Probably the biggest collapse that still haunts Fulmer in his career is the loss to LSU in the 2001 SEC Championship Game. Having won over Spurrier's Florida Gators in Gainesville the week before, the Vols were a virtual lock to become the first SEC team in half a century to play in the Rose Bowl for no less than a chance at Fulmer's second national championship. Saban out-coached the Vols and his Tigers beat them in the second half with second-string players in key positions for LSU, due to injuries.

The top-notch talent both Fulmer and Summitt bring to The Hill deserves no less than big-time coaches to hone their skills. Certainly Summitt has had a staff that has been in demand and that has resulted in some turnover. It may have resulted in some key losses in big games for her.

Fulmer, on the other hand, has been loyal to a fault to assistants that are less than stellar, are not in demand by anyone, and aren't going anywhere as long as they are the highest paid in the SEC. That has certainly resulted in some losses that have come as a result of lack of mental toughness.

You can't argue with success, or can you? That old American clich