Watch- this will end up being another blown opportunity like Taj Boyd. He was committed to TN then Kiffin came in and told him basically he can still come but you won't play for me in the system I am putting in. What happens? He goes to Clemson and is the first in a line of successful qb's.

I was thinking this same thing. I doubt he coaches himself out of a job. It will be over the NCAA findings. I bet LSU isn't doing a whole lot of digging to get him out though unlike my Big Orange Clusters.

Where does that 4 mil a year rank him among current SEC coaches? Too lazy to look it up myself. I like the hire, my expectations are he can get UT back to a .500 average team with a bowl game here and there. Have a fun offense that works more often than not and maybe even be able to pull an unexpected upset once in a while too. Once the sanctions are done with maybe we can rebuild properly and start the climb to relevance again.

I know I am late to the party but I always kinda thought that we rushed things on Both Fulmer and Jones. Fulmer had a down cycle with losing his OC's and the boosters meddling and basically forcing his hand in going with a (somewhat new then) spread offense OC. The claw-ffense didn't have enough time to get the right players to make it effective and Fulmer was booted after 1 seasons attempt to do it. Jones- he over achieved in several games but had the teams competitive in both 2015 and 2016. The 2015 season all 4 losses were a combined 17 points. 2016 was mostly close losses as well. Some dumb and unexpected but that is football. 2017 probably should have been a freebee to him since he lost so much talent. It wasn't, he was expected to build and be better and his tantrums and non-answers in press conferences certainly did not help.

Completely agree with you there. I just think with Fulmer resigning on Monday and the firm finding somebody and announcing on Thursday is a bit fast for all the other stuff that must have gone into it. Wondering if the search firm wasn't retained a month ago and silently doing there stuff.

So when did we actually hire the AD search firm? Contract signed already? How long does it take to get a contract drafted, approved by lawyers, reviewed by other lawyers, bartered and agreed upon? Seems too fast to give with timeline of everything else. Like the hire, if nothing else it can't be worse than Fulmer.

From my very unreliable sources- friends of friends of children of large boosters- it was basically just as Booches said. Fulmer attempted to dig up some dirt to move on without paying his buyout and ended up with more than he expected. With the amount of time Fulmer spent on the football team the school was shocked he wasn't aware of any of this. The man was at more football practices than he wasn't meanwhile other sport dept's had to go over his head to get responses to emails. How did the AD have this going on literally under his nose and be completely oblivious to it? That is one of the reasons he is being led to retirement. Just rumors but still.

Ah come on, we will give you Chaney back. haha

Yup. Past 11 years for 4 coaches(not counting interim) you have to go back 41 years for the next 4 coaches. Our fans(myself somewhat included) are still living with the memory of the 4 coaches over 41 years and thinking we are still that program when we obviously are not.

Yeah and we are turning down Dabo daily too huh? No, we will have to try again with a non-name Dooley type and we will regret it again. Another few years of skating at or just below 500 then we will try to upgrade to another coach. Let's just hope we don't get another Butch type. Hey what's Tom Herman doing? Is he damaged goods enough?

Wow, I saw this coming but still, wow. I do think we have somewhat been spoiled as far as longevity of our coaches up until this decade. I mean 4 coaches in 41 years vs 4 coaches in 11 years. I just want a coach that can eventually get us into the top 25 for several weeks in a row, maybe even for an entire season. I'll take ranked number 25 in week one and then still ranked number 25 in the final rankings.

I believe this is the same attorney that Tennessee used to fire Pearl with cause as well.

I think Jim Chaney would be a great hire. Please hire him.

Didn't this article get posted on Monday? Please tell me it isn't Monday still.

Not sure what has happened to Mauer. I thought the same thing last year about him. Cannon- gunslinger- risk taker. Didn't he end up getting multiple concussions last year or was it Shrout? I think if G comes back he causes possibly both Shrout and Mauer to leave due to not enough room. I wouldn't be surprised if we loose one regardless.

Basically this right here. Lots of us UT fans got a glimmer of hope in the loss to Alabama last year. Yes the 3rd stringers for Bama are better than our starters but we played hard, didn't quit and showed heart. Then the streak started(yes lesser quality opponents) and it built on the hope started with Bama loss. Then we played decent for the 1st half of the GA game this year, then yeah everything else. The slow ascent that we were seeing and getting excited about is no longer there. Now we have a coach getting butt hurt during media interviews?

This pretty much sums it up.

I think the comment about TN not being able to afford a coaching change is correct. That and Fulmer is not one to make quick changes. Look how long he stuck with 90's football. The moment he tried to update and go to somewhat of a spread offense it failed and he got fired. I know there was more to it than that, I just think he isn't going to make a fast judgement due to his own experience of his coaching career ending. I think Pruitt gets one more year for that reason and given how little money is coming into the entire dept.

So is there a group of Georgia fans clamoring for change because Kirby has not made the "jump"? If so, I would caution on change just to improve from the current top 2-4 in the SEC.

It's never too late to wonder what if. Us Vols fans do it all year long. My favorite what if is what if Lane Kiffin didn't tell Tajh Boyd to open back up his recruitment? Would that change the Vols? Or even better would it have changed Clemson? I feel like he was the qb for Clemson that got the qb machine and success up and running.

Enflamed turnover trashcan?

I had a little bit of hope there Corch. Chaney's offense was the only thing we had going for us the last year of Dooley. It was fun to watch them score almost at will. Unfortunately our defense was very very stoppable haha. I had hoped that Chaney would be able to get something similar going again here but it just hasn't happened for multiple obvious reasons.

Not a whole lot of money coming in and this is our last year of buy out payments to Butch and Currie so I would assume that Pruitt is safe. That said play Bailey play Bailey Play Bailey. It can't hurt anything! Beginning this year everyone said our weak spot would be wide reciever and it still is but I don't think it is as bad as once thought. Get them someone that might be able to make a throw or 3 more in a real game and see where it goes from there.

They look like they have gotten rid of the online writers. If I look at a score of a game I want to read the recap. Not watch 4 30 second clips. I know I am in shrinking minority but I skip over video clips. I'd rather read about it. Also please get rid of Stephen A. Smith. His schtick has grown old and he is more so about hearing himself talk at this point.

My response to the headline question is yes it is still a rivalry to me. I am old enough to remember the 80-90s games and that is what keeps it a rivalry in my mind. Younger generations, current players...probably not.

That is one dangerous crossing route. Glad he is going ok.

We had the punter of the week winner! Sigh... Same as SicEm- Can't dispute anyone on this list. Hard to pick just 10.

My hope was to at least keep it semi competitive for about 3 quarters. That would show to me that we are moving in the right direction. I didn't think for an instant that we were deep enough to make it a full game. Didn't quite make it 3 quarters but I'm not too upset about the game. JG is who he is. I don't want to waste an eligibility year for Harrison if we can help it though. Back to the ol' drawing board and once again I am just glad to be watching football.

Umm did we watch the same game? My optimism lessened a bit after Saturdays game. I'm still all Vol but it would not shock me if we ended up 4-6.

dvhill- my thoughts exactly. Glad to read he rejected it for this season. Gotta wonder what this puts his buy out at. I mean I think we are still paying the buy outs for both Dooley and Butch as well as the 1 year flop of the AD what-ever his name was. We might have paid off Dooley but not invested enough to look it up.