Tennessee football is broken, and it’s becoming more and more evident with each passing moment that it’s broken in ways that aren’t limited to just the team or whoever the current coach happens to be. It goes much deeper than that.

We all know what has happened. What we haven’t gotten clarity on yet is why it is happening. Much of the national media lays the blame on common fans for believing they have a right to influence the decisions of the athletic department. Fans blame the coaches when the team does poorly, and after Sunday’s very public Contractus Interruptus, fans were screaming for a similar fate for athletic director John Currie. At the basketball game the other night, the arrows started reaching another rung up the ladder to Beverly Davenport.

First it was “FIRE BUTCH”

Then it was “FIRE CURRIE”

Now it’s “FIRE BEV” pic.twitter.com/zhDJl82qLf

— Brianna Paciorka (@bpaciorka) November 30, 2017

This morning, fans got their wish as to Currie, but it came just as he’d done something right in reportedly landing Mike Leach, a win that seemed to please most Vols fans. That deal now appears to be off, if it was ever really on.

What the heck is going on here?

It’s tempting to believe that firing Currie or firing the Chancellor or whoever is at the top of the totem pole will fix the problem, but we’ve experienced an unending series of issues for nearly a decade now, and every time one problem is uprooted, another one pops up in its place.

Maybe it’s something much deeper. Maybe it’s time to stop focusing on the people who’ve been hired and fired and instead start wondering whether those people are being improperly influenced by the wrong people. Maybe there’s a common thread lurking in the shadows, shielded by the scapegoats.

This is why it is so irritating to have national media calling out the common fans for what happened Sunday. I said this in many more words a couple of days ago, but let me try to say it more succinctly this time: If you think Sunday was the first time a fan base influenced an athletic department, you’re just wrong. What was notable about Sunday was that common fans were pushing back against the rich ones.

Big money boosters (a small number of fans with a ton of money) have always had influence over the athletic department to which they give money, while common fans (a ton of fans with a little money) have never had the same privilege until technology enabled them to aggregate their influence. At most places, common fans don’t mind the big money boosters because they don’t actually screw anything up.

No, common fans wouldn’t have any problem with rich fans having influence over the department if they were actually making the program better. But if they’ve been screwing it up for a decade and there’s no way to get rid of them, your athletic department has a very serious problem.

The growing perception of common Vols fans is that the Tennessee athletic department has long been beholden to rich men with terrible judgment about football. On Sunday, the collective voice of the common fan revolted, not necessarily because the athletic department wasn’t listening to them, but because it was becoming more and more clear that some really rich guy had optioned the right to make decisions for the entire fan base and was ruining the program in the process.

The view from the stands

Common Vols fans aren’t allowed behind the curtain on The Hill, so we can only rely on whatever information we can gather from media members with sources to help us figure out what’s going on.

But when you start to see comments like this from credible national media members, you have to wonder:

So, if that’s DING DING DING true, just who is it that had Currie’s hands tied until last night?

I’m telling you right now that I don’t have sufficient sources to know, but I do know that when you venture onto Twitter or message boards or Tony Basilio’s radio show for any amount of time, the name you’ll see or hear most often is Jimmy Haslam’s.

I am not taking a position on whether Haslam is the sole problem, a problem, or not a problem at all. I’m only saying that I do believe that the program is suffering from too much influence from one or several big money boosters and that there are a lot of common Vols fans who believe that it’s Haslam causing the most trouble.

Why are Vols fans suspicious of Jimmy Haslam?

Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and you’re okay
Money, it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team

— Money, by Pink Floyd

Jimmy Haslam is rich beyond comprehension for most of us. He’s the CEO of Pilot Flying J, the 15^th-largest private company in the United States. According to Forbes, he’s worth $3.6 billion.

Haslam loves football, but he’s terrible at managing a program. He bought the Cleveland Browns back in 2012 for $990 million. Since that time, Cleveland has been considered the worst franchise in the NFL, finishing dead last in the AFC North every year since Haslam bought the team. Over the past six years, the team has gone 5-11, 4-12, 7-9, 3-13, and 1-15, and they are winless this year. One Browns fan has purchased a permit to hold an 0-16 parade around FirstEnergy Stadium at the conclusion of this season. They are 1-29 in their past 30 games and 4-44 dating back to 2014. It’s the worst 48-game stretch in NFL history. They are not just bad, but historically, terribly bad. People are beginning to seriously wonder whether the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft this year might refuse to sign with the Browns if they’re the ones to pick him.

Of course, you can’t buy a college football team like you can an NFL team. But you can give a boatload of money to one, and Haslam is a major donor to the University of Tennessee. He was part of three generations of the Haslam family that donated $50 million to the UT College of Business back in 2014.

To my knowledge, there have been no reports of big money boosters causing any serious problems at Tennessee, but it’s no secret that donating large amounts of money earns you certain privileges at the schools to which you donate.

And there are, in fact, some reports that Haslam has been and is involved in important decisions for the athletic department. Jimmy Hyams reported that when the school was hiring someone to replace outgoing athletic director Dave Hart, Haslam was not only on the search committee, but was “the search committee member that pushed for Currie.”

And regarding the current search for a new coach to replace Butch Jones, Mike Griffith recently reported that:

Currie declined to use a search firm, and he has instead been consulting with the family of Vols booster Jimmy Haslam and Tennessee legend Peyton Manning, according to the source.

Griffith also said via Tweet that Manning has merely “been involved” and that Haslam is “at the point.”

Peyton Manning has been involved, Jimmy Haslam at the point with Currie on this one, per sources. https://t.co/PzjK6pjfpu

— Mike Griffith (@MikeGriffith32) November 29, 2017

Subsequent reports suggest that Haslam’s involvement after last Sunday has been limited. But up until then, at least, a guy who’s owned a terrible team for five years and has given millions of dollars to the University was reportedly involved in some of the most important decisions they make. And so many of those decisions have not gone very well at all.

But does any of that mean Haslam is forcing himself on the University? Not necessarily. Maybe they want his help.

But let me ask you this: Would you?

We’ve already established that the NFL team he’s owned for five years is historically bad, so why would you ask him for advice on football matters?

In addition to that, there’s that not-so-small matter of the current Pilot Flying J scandal. This article is not about that case, so I won’t spend too much time on the details, but here’s the gist: Pilot Flying J, the company of which Jimmy Haslam is CEO, is embroiled in an ongoing fraud case against the company. The FBI and IRS raided the corporate headquarters in 2013, and 14 former employees have already pled guilty. Four more former executives are on trial for conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. The company has already paid $92 million in fines (and the board of directors reportedly confessed criminal responsibility in connection therewith), and the company paid another $85 million to settle with customers. So far, Jimmy Haslam himself has not been charged. This week, though, feds began to look into his potential knowledge or involvement based on a recording purportedly showing that he was present at a meeting during which the fraud was allegedly being taught to staff.

None of that is to suggest that Jimmy Haslam himself is guilty of anything, but whether he’s guilty or not is not the point.

The point is this: When you Google Jimmy Haslam’s name right now, what you get is a page full of news associating his name with fraud.

Who in their right mind would think it’s a good idea to send him out on a coaching search to represent a school with its own reputation problem?

Separation of powers

So, when a highly-respected national media member endorses the idea that the real problem at Tennessee was something improperly influencing the athletic director, well, that should get your attention. So should someone as respectable as Bruce Feldman mentioning in an article published this morning that, “there is a lot of in-fighting, finger-pointing and back-stabbing taking place amongst Tennessee brass.”

Does that verify the common fans’ belief that Haslam’s been wielding too much influence over the process? Does it mean a coup is underway among the most influential boosters, and if so, is that a good thing? Is the department finally headed toward stability? Are we possibly at risk of trading one tyrant for another? Or has someone with a white hat finally rode in to save the day?

It’s too early to tell, of course. But it would seem that a re-balancing of power at this time might be a very good thing, even as ugly as it’s been. Especially if whoever ends up in control knows that they are also going to be held accountable by the collective voice of the common fan.

WVLT is reporting that Tennessee athletics director John Currie has been fired.

Currie was hired only eight months ago and had gained not insignificant amounts of goodwill by bringing back the Lady Vols logo and making a move on head football coach Butch Jones in the middle of a historically bad season. All of that was undone in a matter of weeks, however, with Currie’s handling of the search for a new football coach, which has featured a long series of missteps that has the various factions of Tennessee stakeholders at odds with one another.

Currie reportedly met with Chancellor Beverly Davenport this morning and learned of his fate during that meeting. No word yet on who will replace Currie, either permanently or temporarily for the purpose of concluding the coaching search.

[UPDATE] VolQuest is reporting that Phillip Fulmer has been more involved in the coaching search since last Sunday and that he’ll be assuming a greater role going forward.

 

It’s looking like Tennessee’s coaching search may finally be drawing to a close. At 10:42 last night, Newy Scruggs and NBCDFWSports (NBC Dallas Ft. Worth) cited sources in saying that the Vols were working on a deal with Mike Leach and that an announcement could be made today. Almost immediately after that, Dan Harralson of Saturday Down South tweeted that Leach himself said, “I’m on my way” directly to Harralson. At 11:43 p.m., Bruce Feldman — who co-wrote Leach’s book Swing Your Sword — said that “a souorce” told him that Leach’s meeting with Tennessee went very well.

Mike Leach is in his sixth season as the head coach of the Washington State Cougars. We have him listed as an offensive Guru in our taxonomy of college football coaches, primarily due to what I once termed a unique “space offense.” Leach is only 38-37 at Washington State overall, but his team is currently 18th in the nation, and he’s done that with a rolling recruiting ranking of only 49th. His recruiting rankings the last four years were 44th, 56th, 42nd, and 53rd. Whether you take that to mean he can’t recruit well or that he can coach well despite lacking SEC talent is up to you. But if he comes, he’ll at least have a couple of years to show what he can do with SEC talent.

At this point, the reports are not official and we should all be well aware by now that nothing is done until it’s done and the guy is standing at the podium, but this one somehow looks like a plausible scenario, so it’s definitely something to watch.

[UPDATE] This is obviously in limbo in light of news that John Currie has been fired as Tennessee’s athletic director.

 

One of the most interesting things about what happened on Rocky Top Sunday concerns the shift in the balance of power in collegiate athletic programs. While some Vols fans were celebrating having “taken back their program,” most national sports media pundits were decrying John Currie’s “spineless” abdication of his decision-making authority to the fans. I heard the latter so many times yesterday that I lost track of everyone who said it. One representative example of the national criticism is a piece from Yahoo’s Pete Thamel saying that Tennessee has now “decided to let their fans dictate their coaching search “American-Idol”-style.

In case you’re wondering, that is not a compliment. Thamel is not alone, either, as that sentiment has been a recurring theme among the national media the last 36 hours. I’ve seen only one exception, from SI.com’s Andy Staples.

The profound lack of nuance is clouding up the real issue. Regardless of their words, fans don’t really mean that they’re in control of the program, and national media folks don’t really mean that Tennessee has opened the phone lines to take votes on who is going to be the next head coach.

No, fans are not saying that the administration should do everything they want and media is not saying that they should ignore fans completely. At least I hope not. When everyone’s over the top, everyone’s wrong.

The real question is this: How much weight should the administration give to the opinions of fans?

The answer, of course, is some. Sunday was about fans feeling that “none” had finally become “some,” and they had finally found their collective voice as strong as that of big money boosters.

Always listen, sometimes act

It’s a tricky question, how much to listen to your customers.

Back in 2011, I opened a store to sell licensed apparel and accessories to sports fans. Before we opened, we did all of the requisite market research and brought in the product we thought best at the time.

When we opened the doors, we started getting real feedback from real customers, and at first we listened to every one of them and bent over backwards to give them what they desired. If a customer wanted something we didn’t have, we’d get it for them.

Acting on that feedback turned out to be a huge mistake. We soon learned that one customer really passionate about the one thing you don’t have doesn’t justify meeting that desire. We also learned that a customer who loudly complains about not having something often won’t buy it when you do anyway. Votes with wallets count more than votes with voices.

Over time, we got better at listening to the right customers and politely ignoring others. If only a small handful of people requested something we didn’t have, we knew better than to invest in it. But if enough people told us they wanted something, we would try it. And then, when we brought something new in, if it sold, we got more of it. If it didn’t sell, we politely ignored requests to stock it.

Bottom line, you have to listen to the feedback of your customers or you might never discover what they actually want, but you also have to make your own decisions about whether to act on that feedback or not.

When and how much should Tennessee act on fan feedback?

If anyone in the national media actually means it when they say that Tennessee or any other NCAA football program shouldn’t listen to its fans at all, they are just wrong or being lazy with their words.

Tennessee absolutely should listen to its audience, of that there can be no doubt. A football program, much like a business, is a symbiotic institution. The team is the product. The fans are the audience, the customers. The administration manages the details of the institution. Each of those things depends on the other. For instance, the administration needs the fans to continue buying tickets, concessions, and merchandise and, if they aren’t at the stadium, to at least remain interested in the team so that the school can continue to sell its customers’ attention to advertisers. Without customers financially engaged, the entire enterprise crumbles.

Yes, it would be unwise for the administration to grant the fan base any part of the decision-making process. But it would be equally unwise to utterly ignore the feedback they’re getting from them.

Sunday afternoon, Tennessee fans learned that athletic director John Currie was marching down the aisle on his way to the altar and an expensive long-term commitment to Greg Schiano. And then the preacher asked the loved ones in attendance to speak now or forever hold their peace, and the Tennessee fan base spoke up.

There were multiple reasons given for the objection. Some were uncomfortable about the Penn State stuff in the Washington Post article. Some were alarmed that Tennessee would choose a guy that had submarined a team in Tampa by losing the trust of his players, a situation much too similar to what had just happened in Knoxville with the guy they had just fired. Some didn’t like Schiano’s reported tendency to tick off people known for being nice (same link), including Tennessee’s favorite son, Peyton Manning. There were other reasons, as well, and some of these reasons were all mixed in together.

Some, like me, were especially alarmed at the sheer volume of fans headed for the exits in droves, regardless of the reason. These were folks ready to finally throw in the towel after a decade of waiting for the University to deliver on a promise to give them something worth cheering. It was too much to ask of too many, and the stands were emptying before our eyes. If my humble little fan shop in Kingsport, Tennessee is concerned about the sudden disappearance of customers, I cannot fathom why or how the Tennessee athletics administration could care less.

The customers were being ignored, again, and they were leaving.

The $100M dollar donor vs. an army of thousand dollar donors

The funny thing is, Tennessee actually has been listening to some of its customers for years, which is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be precisely the problem.

We peasant fans have little to no idea what goes on behind the curtain on The Hill. But one would have to be extremely naïve to believe that big money boosters aren’t involved and don’t have too much influence over the athletic department.

And that’s the irony of this entire story: The national media is criticizing the school for acting on the opinion of thousands of fans while ignoring the very real possibility that it’s been acting on the influence of a handful of big money boosters for a decade or more.

Let me go back to my business for a second. We have some customers that come in regularly and spend much, much more than others. They’re our best customers. We love them. We will give them special attention because we appreciate them. Thankfully, none of them have ever done this, but if one of them ever asked us to do something that would have a negative impact on our ability to also serve our regular customers, we’d be in a real dilemma: Lose our best customer or lose most of our regular customers?

That’s the dilemma in which Currie found himself on Sunday. What does he do when his one $100M donor wants one thing and an army of $1,000 donors want something else?

Back in the day, only the big money booster had the athletic director’s ear. Now, the thousand dollar donors have a voice, too. Collectively, they have always been as important as the big money guys, they just didn’t have a way to aggregate their influence to provide a counter-weight to the rich dude with the AD’s personal cell number. Now they do.

That’s the story. That’s what’s new. It’s not that the school has suddenly decided to cede control to its fans. It’s not even that they’ve suddenly decided to start listening to their fans. They’ve been doing that for years, and it’s resulted in a decade of debacles.

What was unique about Sunday was that the athletic department finally started listening to common fans, too, and not just the one guy who’s written the biggest check.

Chris Low is reporting that the deal between Tennessee and Greg Schiano is now officially not going to happen:

The Greg Schiano to Tennessee deal is dead. Following a public outcry among fans and state politicians, Tennessee backed out of a memorandum of understanding with Schiano that had been signed earlier in the day by both parties.

— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) November 27, 2017

Earlier, Jimmy Hyams reported that there was indeed a press conference scheduled for 9:00 p.m. this evening to announce Tennessee’s hiring of Greg Schiano, but that it had been canceled due to the unprecedented fan backlash this afternoon:

I am told Tennessee was going to have a press conference tonight to announce the hiring of Schiano but canceled it due to protests. Unsure if it will be rescheduled tomorrow or if the deal has fallen through. One prominent booster wasn’t happy with Schiano hire.

— Jimmy Hyams (@JimmyHyams) November 26, 2017

At the time of the tweet, it was unclear whether the press conference was merely re-scheduled or canceled for good. Some reports say that it was Schiano who is balking due to the backlash and that the school still had the offer on the table.

It was early this afternoon that USA Today’s Dan Wolken first reported that Tennessee was finalizing a deal with Schiano. Schiano, who’s currently the defensive coordinator for Ohio State, was an assistant at Penn State while Jerry Sandusky was there, and, according to sworn testimony from former Penn State assistant Mike McQueary, was aware of Sandusky’s improper behavior with young boys. Based on that report from last July, fans on social media immediately voiced their displeasure and began ringing the bell to get the attention of others.

Fans painted The Rock in protest and then gathered on campus for an actual protest. At least one 4-star recruit de-committed. Tennessee state representatives then began to object to the hire on social media as well, and some reached out directly to the athletic department. Even the White House Press Secretary ended up weighing in:

As the fervor grew, word came that Schiano was having second thoughts due to the backlash:

Greg Schiano is currently concerned with the climate of the Tennessee fan base and the reaction towards reports of his contract being finalized at Tennessee. The deal may not get finalized.

— Dan Harralson (@danharralson) November 26, 2017

And now word comes from Low and others that the deal is in fact dead.

It is good to hear that it was Tennessee’s decision to back out of the Memorandum of Understanding. For too long today, it seemed that they were clearly not concerned about what fans think. No athletic department should abdicate any measure of authority to fans, but ignoring the customer is idiotic. There is no football program without fans. Sure, there will always be some, and many others will eventually forgive and forget, but intentionally plowing forward knowing that you’re alienating a huge percentage of your paying customer base is just dumb. And if he had been hired, he would have started with even less patience and even more scrutiny than most new head coaches.

So, where does Tennessee go from here? If it’s true that Tennessee did significant damage today to its ability to lure a coach to Knoxville, then that’s not the fault of the fan base, not today. This was a huge misstep by John Currie, and he never should have put the fan base in the position of having to rally to resist the hire. This one’s on him, not the fans, and not anticipating the fan reaction was a huge blind spot that will be a concern going forward.

If he wasn’t before, Currie better be listening now. He has to get this one right, and today, he was only hours away from doing the exact opposite of that.

Add Texas A&M to the 2017 coaching carousel, as they have fired Kevin Sumlin after six seasons. They join Tennessee, Florida, Ole Miss (presumably), and Arkansas as SEC teams in the market for a new head coach. Sumlin had a 51-26 overall record at A&M, but had gone 8-5 each of the past three seasons and finished the regular season this year at 7-5.

Arkansas fired Bret Bielema this weekend, as well, as Bielema was coming off the field after a 48-45 loss to Missouri. That not only adds two more coaching vacancies in the SEC, it adds two more coaches to the candidate pool.

Tennessee hiring Greg Schiano as its next head coach is still an unofficial report at this time, but there has already been extreme reaction.

Former Vols commit 4-star cornerback Jaycee Horn has decommitted:

pic.twitter.com/6EvBZKfpUL

— JUNGLE BOY (@jayceehorn_10) November 26, 2017

At least two Tennessee state reps have also weighed in on the matter, including Jeremy Faison:

@UTKnoxville if you hire him, the backlash will be insurmountable and devastating to the University and the state.

— Jeremy Faison (@JeremyFaison4TN) November 26, 2017

Jason Zachary has gone one step further and actually tried to get John Currie’s attention, presumably via something other than social media:

I have reached out to @John_Currie and others in administration at UT expressing that WE as a TN Community do not approve of Schiano. #higherstandards

— Rep. Jason Zachary (@JasonZacharyTN) November 26, 2017

As I said, this is all reaction to an as-yet unofficial report. If the administration was floating this as a trial balloon, I think they have their answer.

Right on the heels of the (as yet unofficial) report that Tennessee is finalizing a deal with Greg Schiano to be its next head football coach, we now get word that Florida is finalizing a deal with Dan Mullen to become theirs.

The Tennessee fan base is melting down, and honestly, I don’t have anything to tell them. If the Schiano deal gets done and if social media is to be believed, then there will apparently be a lot fewer Vols fans in the world tomorrow morning.

 

USA Today’s Dan Wolken is reporting that Tennessee is finalizing a deal to make Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano its next head coach. Schiano apparently became the focus of the search in part due to Dan Mullen “stalling with the Vols in an attempt to wait and see what happens with the opening at Florida.”

With names like Dan Mullen, Matt Campbell, Mike Leach, and Chris Petersen still floating around as late as yesterday, fans are in an uproar, some for the wrong reasons and some for the right ones.

As of the time of this post, it is not yet official, but VolQuest has confirmed the USA Today report that Tennessee is finalizing a deal for Schiano.

How are you feeling about this?