agent916

wtf would honestly want this hire? Lol is this a satire article?

I couldn't disagree any stronger with this article. It's as out-of-touch as the entire UT Administration has been this past decade. The very two guys you say they SHOULDN'T hire, are the EXACT two they should. Period. Guys like Gus are not coming here. He just got paid 21M with absolutely no need to rush back into coaching, let alone a program in dire straights. Here's where you really wrong. This coaching hire is limited to younger guys. 49 and younger. And I'd be willing to bet everything I have on it. So..if you had to re-write you article with a coaching pool with only under 49 year old's in it, this article would be trash. And no offense, but it's trash.

Vol Fans. Are you missing Schiano yet?

I'm from Knoxville and this is dead on. They used the storyline bc it was there to take off and run with to eventually lead to this, they got their way. My opinion, we all know it's not the ideal hire. It's not, but that doesn't mean who couldn't have came here and won, and let me say this...by backing out of the deal you have now cemented the precedent to ALL ELITE coaches in the future, the message is at first sign of adversity, the administration does NOT have your back. The admin took the situation and made it bad to worse in the matter of an hour. Now, be careful what you wish for, you may end up with a guy with zero HC experience, and the program may remain in the tank for a decade.

Tennessee, much like LSU has just experienced and was forced to settle for a HC (Big Ed) when they fired Les Miles, is paying til this day for the firing of Fulmer. It's not should he have been fired, that matters little. It's how the firing went down. Elite coaches look at this stuff. It matters. They want to be able to have a conversation with their wife and say you know, "I can go there and we can coach for 10 years and retire there". Instead, the reality is you win 9-10 games per season, a National Title, and a few down years gets you fired, mid-season (see Fulmer). To be fair again this is the dilemma the entire SEC is experiencing. Georgia with Richt (You think he can coach or no?), Miles at LSU, Fulmer at TN, and I'm still not convinced Urban saw crazy in FLA and arranged a bolt to Ohio State. Point is coaching in the SEC where the entire conference has unrealistic expectations has resulted in every school having hiring problems and forced to now settle for average coaches. The entire conference, it's fans, and everyone involved had better wake up. If not, you're going to see a shift in talent that carries over to other conferences that will start to dominate. If you're honest, that's already started to occur.

^ This guy is exactly the reason no top coach will even consider the job. Unrealistic expectations. To be fair, it's not just Tennessee, it's the entire SEC, which is why the conference has (had) six job openings this off-season and they continually have to settle for coaches. I live in Knoxville, and you are outta your damn mind if you think it's a tier 1 job. It's not been a tier 1 job for an entire decade now.