Get Fulmer Back.com

According to a report at digital sports daily, Troy Calhoun has turned down the Tennessee head coaching job. He was scheduled to have a meeting with his team at Air Force today, and there was a lot of speculation that he would announce that he would be the head coach at Tennessee. He has now, however, released a statement that he is staying at Air Force.

Update: Speculation is now that Mike Hamilton will focus on David Cutcliffe.

Well it is official, only weeks after his completing his best season ever as a head coach at 7-6, Lane Kiffin is leaving Tennessee for USC. Needless to say Tennessee fans are upset. There are even reports of police using tear gas keep people from blocking Kiffin's exit. Al Davis may be rolling over in his grave. (We know he is not dead.)

Coach Kiffin had done many things to convince recruits that he was building a dynasty. He even went as far as giving his son the middle name "Knox". There is no word on whether or not Kiffin will be changing his son's middle name to "Angel" or "Trojan".

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for Mike Hamilton. It is apparent now that the move to hire Lane Kiffin and fire Phillip Fulmer was a very bad one. It has left the program in more disarray than before. Could Hamilton's job be in question now too?

Of course an even more fun question would be, could it be possible that Tennessee will wind up hiring Phillip Fulmer back? I would think Hamilton would have to be fired first. At least one commentator has suggested that David Cutcliffe could be on his way back to Tennessee. How about John Chavis?

I guess it is time to dust off that list of 5 Reasons why Phillip Fulmer Should Still be the Coach at Tennessee

According to GoVolsXtra there was Phillip Fulmer sighting at ESPN. It looks like Phillip is taking others advice and taking some time off from coaching by being a studio analyst. From the article:

If there was one thing different about Fulmer it was the choice of his tie: blue.

It looks like it is official, Ed Orgeron will be joining Tennessee. Apparently Sean Payton was happy with this.

The source also suggested that Payton was not very pleased with the progress of the defensive line under Orgeron even before the LSU-Tennessee tug-of-war began, and he is looking forward to the opportunity to bring in a veteran defensive line coach with NFL experience.

Also from the article:

The deciding factor appears to have been money. While it was rumored LSU was willing to spend in the neighborhood of $500,000, it is speculated Tennessee offered Orgeron nearly $900,000.

Some people have actually suggested that the coverage by this website of Phillip Fulmer's firing at Tennessee is any thing less than fair and balanced. Thus, in order to prove those people wrong we present the top people instrumental in Phillip Fulmer's firing.

1. David Cutcliffe
David Cutcliffe wasn't actually a problem for Phillip Fulmer, but him leaving Tennessee for Ole Miss in 1998 was a big problem. After Cutcliffe vacated Tennessee's offensive coordinator position for the head coaching position at Ole Miss, Tennessee's offense has never quite been the same. When he came back in 2005 it seemed Tennessee's program was back on track, but Coach Cut left for the head coaching position at Duke in 2008. Fulmer's and Hamilton's inability to find a quality offensive coordinator other than David Cutcliffe was the biggest problem for Phillip Fulmer.

2. Kelly Washington

Kelly Washington had huge potential when he came to college at Tennessee, and was one of the few players at Tennessee to see significant playing time as a freshman. However, many critics saw him as a "me first" kind of player. He dubbed himself "the Future", and left for the NFL after 2 years at UT. He is often sighted as the beginning of a period when Philip Fulmer had many discipline problems. Even Kirk Herbstreit called out Washington as the beginning of when Fulmer started to loose control of his teams. Many former players have since come out to defend Washington, and I doubt anyone would say Washington directly lead to the many arrests that followed his time at Tennessee. Fulmer simply did not exert enough control over his teams after 2002. Phil started to get it right in 2008 with the 5 game suspension of Britton Colquitt for a DUI and the release of LaMarcus Coker after failing drug tests, but it was too late by then.

Trick Daddy considered UT and Miami before deciding to just keep Thuggin'
(completely made up stuff about Trick Daddy)

3. Nick Saban
How could a coach that was has only been back in the SEC for 2 years cause Phillip Fulmer to loose his job? Well, Nick Saban strikes fear into the heart of SEC Athletic Directors like a paternity test strikes fear into the heart of Travis Henry. The fear hit Mike Hamilton along with the rest of the ADs in the SEC.

Athletic directors looked at Saban's faster that expected turn around of the Tide and thought they had to immediately do something to compete...Even if it was the wrong thing. How else can you explain Jay Jacob's irrational move to fire Tommy Tubberville and hire Gene Chizick at Auburn?

Jay Jacobs and Nick Saban Dramatization

4. Mike Hamilton
OK, this one is obvious. Hamilton saw his success with the hire of Bruce Pearl and hopes to create the same success with Lane Kiffin.

5. Phillip Fulmer
Many other writers have documented how Fulmer hurt his chances of retaining his position at UT, but this will focus on one thing. In 2005 Phillip Fulmer did something that he hadn't done before at Tennessee. Uncharacteristically, Fulmer actually hyped up his team in the presason. Fulmer hyped his team in 2005 because the year before he saw Auburn go undefeated and not play for a BCS national championship. The building up of Tennessee worked on the media and got Tennessee ranked highly preseason. However, the hype also worked on the players, and the 2005 Vols underperformed. The huge swing from a highly ranked (overhyped) team to Fulmer's first loosing season firmly put Phil on the hot seat.
6. Layla Kiffin
Ok, she had nothing to do with it, but what Tennessee Football article would be complete without a mention of Layla Kiffin?