Author Archives: Will Shelton

I’ve already been wrong about Jeremy Pruitt once. Fourteen months ago, #9 Tennessee and #1 Alabama played the highest-ranked Third Saturday in October ever. The Vols had just dropped 684 yards on Texas A&M, and touched up Georgia’s defenses for 920 yards and 70 points in their last two meetings with Pruitt. Despite a number of injuries against the Aggies, I thought the Vols would beat Alabama and continue their magical season, based largely on what I thought Tennessee’s offense would do against Alabama’s defense.

Instead, most of those injured players didn’t return, and Alabama held Tennessee to 163 yards and 2.59 yards per play. It was the worst yards per play performance by a Tennessee offense in the last ten years…until we played Alabama this year, and got 2.35.

 

The magic ran out for Tennessee on that October day in 2016, and indeed for Butch Jones too. It peaked between the hedges two weeks earlier and at least a dozen narratives ago. After starting 5-0 last year, the Vols are 8-12 in their last 20 games. And the team on the other end of that hail mary looks mighty fine today.

What’s behind the emphasis on defense and discipline?

I’m sure Kirby Smart’s success made all three of Tennessee’s finalists more appealing; Georgia’s head coach would have no doubt been mentioned in the press conference as an example of what could be had the Vols hired Kevin Steele or Mel Tucker, and you can expect to hear it when they’re introducing Jeremy Pruitt. But I wonder if something else was in Tennessee’s motivation to lean in that direction – it was John Currie’s first choice too with Greg Schiano – and not, we know now, because Tee Martin was guaranteed to come in on the offensive side of the ball.

Coaching hires are indeed pendulum swings, so it makes sense to hire a defensive coach after five years of the Butch Jones offense. But the more pressing need (and the more apparent one to those behind the scenes, perhaps) may have been discipline and roster management. How many talented players in significant roles failed to finish their careers at Tennessee under the previous administration? It wasn’t just the weirdness of Jalen Hurd’s story. There’s a long list from Marquez North to Jauan Jennings.

Butch Jones knew how to recruit elite talent, but coaching it and keeping it were not his strong suits. This was an unchecked box for some candidates as well, but having spent the last five years as the defensive coordinator at Florida State, Georgia, and Alabama, it does not appear to be an issue for Jeremy Pruitt.

Are we better off?

The default position for Tennessee fans will be, “Yes.” And I might agree even if I wasn’t one.

Moving on from an athletic director who was so out of touch with both football and the fan base that Greg Schiano was his go-to choice, then replacing him with Phillip Fulmer? That still feels like a win on its own. Is Tennessee better off with Fulmer and Jeremy Pruitt than they would have been with Currie and Mike Leach? I don’t know how that answer will play itself out on fall Saturdays in the near future. But considering Leach was the emergency option for Currie only after missing on Dave Doeren? I would still take Pruitt and Fulmer’s leadership.

I remain hopeful Tennessee’s revolt against the Schiano pick and the resulting power shift will be a good thing long-term. In the short-term, Pruitt is as good as Tennessee and Fulmer had any right to do after this crazy set of days.

A ceiling hire

There are no sure things in this business, and throwing money at the problem is no guarantee. Florida State, one of the few jobs clearly better than ours even when we are at our best, just hired a coach who was in the third tier of many of our initial hot boards. And they hired him in a hurry. Some Tennessee fans better hope they were right about Dan Mullen.

However, even unable to lure a proven winner, even after a fan uprising and a change in athletic director, and even after the worst season in program history…Tennessee still made a ceiling hire. And I’m very impressed with this.

The Vols could have taken the safe option and hired Les Miles, or the easy option and hired Tee Martin. Both would have been very well received initially and sold their fair share of tickets. But the Vols, despite everything, still made a hire with their eyes on the biggest prize. Credit Fulmer, who would know about such things.

To be clear, there are risks. It might be that Jeremy Pruitt is an excellent defensive coordinator and a lousy head coach. We don’t know. Butch Jones had a higher floor (or so we all thought at the time). But Pruitt has a higher ceiling than both Jones and Derek Dooley on the day they took this job. And he probably has a higher ceiling than Les Miles in 2017.

This search was a mess. It will take time to fully digest, and it will stay in the news, and not just because of lawyers. If Pruitt struggles early or often, Tennessee fans will get some of the blame. That narrative is already alive and well and will be convenient for some in the national media to return to. The same unity that sparked all of this will be necessary in the months ahead.

But at the search’s end, Tennessee still hired a coach it believes can win the biggest prize here. I’m not sure they could say that with a straight face at the last two press conferences. And since it will be Fulmer’s face this time, there’s all the more reason to believe it.

When Tennessee’s search came up empty in Raleigh on Thursday morning, it seemed like two options were available. The Vols could press pause, take a breath after the events of an unprecedented week, and reset the board. Or the Vols could press on, try to make a hire as quickly as possible to change the narrative, and “settle” for a down-the-board unproven.

Thursday afternoon, John Currie instead went for door number three: let’s get Mike Leach, and let’s get weird. In their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand. And what a grand experiment this would have been.

Then on Friday morning, weird and unprecedented collided head-on. And on Friday afternoon, at the end of our most insane week at the end of our most insane decade…on Friday afternoon, Tennessee found its way home.

To be clear, the house needs a lot of work. The brick-by-brick renovations looked good for a moment, but ultimately had to be torn down. But today, Phillip Fulmer is the athletic director, and Tennessee feels like home.

This has to be the culmination of the insanity.

We throw “rock bottom” around too often; at the end of the program’s first 4-8 season it’s easy to do. The Vols may continue to struggle on the field in the short-term, and no athletic program of this size and stature runs without drama. But if Tennessee is going to move forward in a meaningful way, Friday has to be the end of the madness.

Tennessee forced Fulmer out at the tail end of the 2008 season, one year after he won 10 games and his fifth division title. They replaced him with Lane Kiffin. Since then:

• Kiffin left in the middle of the night to take the Southern Cal job after just one season in January 2010.
• The Vols hired Derek Dooley fresh off a 4-8 season at Louisiana Tech.
• Bruce Pearl took the basketball program to its first Elite Eight in March 2010, then lost his job one year later, in part for lying about a photograph taken at a BBQ, for which he received a three-year show cause.
• Derek Dooley was fired after three years by Dave Hart, who replaced Mike Hamilton as athletic director. The Vols had Charlie Strong, then didn’t, and ended up hiring Butch Jones.
• Cuonzo Martin took the Vols to the Sweet 16 in 2014, then left for California after a low-ball offer from Dave Hart, who chose not to denounce an in-season petition for Bruce Pearl’s return.
• Hart hired Donnie Tyndall in April 2014. In November, the NCAA announced an investigation into his time at Southern Miss. He was fired after one season in Knoxville.
• Hart retired, in part due to the university’s involvement in a Title IX lawsuit alleging a culture of rape at Tennessee, as did chancellor Jimmy Cheek. Beverly Davenport replaced Cheek, then hired John Currie to replace Dave Hart.
• Butch Jones signed a pair of Top 10 recruiting classes in 2014 and 2015, but coached that talent to only a pair of 9-4 seasons in 2015 and 2016. Tennessee lost to Florida in inexplicable fashion in 2014, 2015, and 2017, failed to win the SEC East despite beating Florida and Georgia in 2016, and missed a chance to make a New Year’s Six bowl by losing to Vanderbilt. In 2017 the Vols fell apart and finished 4-8 for the first time in program history. Jones was fired.

And then, this week.

People smarter than me, including Phillip Fulmer, will tell you Tennessee has suffered on the field and court in large part because they suffered in the board room:  the administration, the athletic department, and influential boosters playing too much tug-of-war. With Fulmer at the helm in the AD, Tennessee must start exerting the majority of its might toward the same goals. And Fulmer at the helm gives Tennessee a better chance to do so than we’ve seen in the last decade.

The long-term became more important this week.

When Tennessee lost to South Carolina and change was moving from possible to probable, this still seemed like a short-term fix. Tennessee’s senior class is small and there are still plenty of recruiting stars on the roster, unlike the turnover we saw from Kiffin-to-Dooley and Dooley-to-Butch. The Vols won nine games in 2015 and 2016, and were ranked for the first three weeks of this season. Hire the right coach and they might come in and sustain the level Butch Jones enjoyed, then hopefully level up.

Since then the Vols lost to Kentucky and were non-competitive in the second half with Missouri, LSU, and Vanderbilt. Two offensive linemen who would have been starters next year will no longer be on the team in 2018, plus a five-star legacy lineman opened up his recruitment. A legitimate conversation about whether to keep Butch Jones if he went 8-4 quickly turned into a 4-8 season, and an understanding that whoever was next would have multi-year work to do to get Tennessee back.

But as this week spiraled out of control, it became clear Tennessee’s long-term future was at stake. And it became clear this wasn’t a problem to be solved simply by making the right hire for the football team.

Friday morning, it felt like Tennessee football was more vulnerable than at any point in my lifetime. Even when the Vols hired Derek Dooley and you knew things would be bad for a couple of years, Tennessee was still just two seasons removed from an SEC East title and eight years removed from the doorstep of the BCS Championship Game. The program was relevant in a way that could (and did) survive Dooley, and survive a three-year recruiting failure from 2007-09.

But now, on the heels of 4-8 and with such instability in the athletic department, Tennessee’s long-term future was in jeopardy. At the end of a difficult decade, the perception quickly became that continuing to march to the beat of the same drum – one that thought Greg Schiano was the best option – would prevent Tennessee from getting healthy. And thus Currie is out, Fulmer is in, and the Haslams’ power seems diminished, with fan voices singing their approval.

An underrated variable in this whole equation is timing, something which finally worked in Tennessee’s favor in basketball when Rick Barnes became available as Donnie Tyndall was fired. What if Jim McElwain squeaks out those games against LSU and Texas A&M in October, and Florida doesn’t decide to make a change? Is Dan Mullen the coach in Knoxville on Sunday, and all of this mess is simply avoided?

This is the biggest question:  is what happened this week a good thing for Tennessee long-term? If the problems on The Hill were indeed systemic, changing the balance of power at the top could be a win for Tennessee even as they take a loss in the short-term. That loss has already come in the national media, though their news cycles get continually shorter. That loss may also come on the field for a season or two. But is Tennessee better off today, with Phillip Fulmer at the helm, the fan voice registering, and everyone given a new chance to pull in the same direction? The answer could be yes even if the alternatives were Jeff Brohm, Mike Leach, or another coach we liked working under the previous system.

Faith returns, hope awaits, love abides

This week I have been more grateful than ever for the teams I love (the Celtics and, for a very long time, the Braves) that are well-run organizations. Growing up with the 80’s Celtics, the 90’s Braves, and the Majors/Fulmer Vols, it was easy to have faith in your team and assume they would make good decisions, giving them the very best chance to win.

At Tennessee, I think much of this faith endured among the fan base even when the first half of the last decade could be blamed on circumstance. When the Vols ended up with Butch Jones instead of Charlie Strong five years ago, faith wavered but love remained. Tennessee fans showed up for Teams 117-121.

But it became clear on Sunday fans did not believe in those with decision making power. This could have been a helpless feeling, and perhaps is in other situations it would be; what do you do if you’re, say, a Cleveland Browns fan?

But after a week of raised voices and real threats to stop showing up – in person and in the university’s bank account – a change sparked by a unified fan voice has given us a leader we can believe in. And once more, faith stirs.

We will see about hope. We noted in the middle of last week that despite a lack of faith in this administration, they still might land a coach to provide some degree of hope. Tennessee tried to rebound with Mike Gundy, then Jeff Brohm, then went to a coach who would have struggled in this department in Dave Doeren. Some of the names from previous hot boards might get a second call, others could move up the ladder, and perhaps Fulmer has a surprise or two up his sleeve. Hiring hope can still make a real difference in ticket sales and patience.

But at the end of a remarkable week and the start of a new chapter in Tennessee athletics, love remains. Love for Tennessee was behind the voices lifted in protest on Sunday, and love for Tennessee brought Fulmer to the big chair. The house needs work, and the family may still bicker about the best way to do it, as only family can. But love for Tennessee remains our unifying factor. We will need it, and we will need to continue to pull together in the same direction before we can make room for another trophy case.

But for now, it feels good to be home. On Friday night, there was finally a chance to rest in this search. My wife and I went out to dinner, and I grabbed an orange hat on my way out the door. It felt better on my head than it had in a long time.

Go Vols.

 

Hope is valuable.

The Powers That Be at Tennessee haven’t given us much reason to believe they will make a good decision in this situation. Not only were they completely out of touch in almost hiring Greg Schiano, they believed Schiano was a more valuable candidate than Mike Gundy, Jeff Brohm, and any number of other options available before everything got nuts on Sunday. It was a stunningly poor move on both a football and a fan relations front, one John Currie will have a long and difficult road to recover from, if he still can.

What do you do when you can’t trust the thing you love to make good decisions?

When the Vols hired Butch Jones, Tennessee’s faith was tested. But we could hope the coach who went 9-3 the last two years at Cincinnati with a pair of shared division titles could grow into the role at Tennessee. And fans showed up, early and often and even late into his final season, because we love Tennessee and we tried to love Butch Jones.

It’s been five years, only about 365 days of which, from one October to the next in 2015-2016, felt like a real return on the investment. The last year was the worst in school history.

We’re all here because we love Tennessee. What we need is hope.

And what we’re losing by the hour is faith in the decision makers.

I actually liked swinging and missing on Mike Gundy; it was a serious play for a serious coach. I don’t know what happened with Jeff Brohm, but fan reaction to the possibility/momentary probability should be educational for the decision makers, if they’re willing to listen.

It’s not exclusive to hiring Tee Martin. You certainly don’t have to hire Lane Kiffin. But you have to hire hope.

When faith seems non-existent, love gets very difficult. When you’ve already shown up for a decade now and been met with only disappointment, it gets more difficult to write the check for tickets. When you don’t believe those in charge are making good decisions about the future of the program, it gets more difficult to show up to support the program.

Tennessee needs hope. And even if there is little faith in the decision makers long-term, they can still make a hire that provides hope today.

Jeff Brohm would have done that, but he’s not the only one. Tee Martin would do that in a different way, but he’s not the only one either. Again:  we hoped in Butch Jones. It can be done.

As one example, consider the difference between Chad Morris and Dave Doeren.

Chad Morris took over an SMU team that went 1-11 in 2014. He went 2-10, then 5-7, then 7-5. Before that he was the architect of the Clemson offense from 2011-14. I don’t know if Chad Morris would be a good coach at Tennessee. But there is reason to hope. (There’s also reason to enjoy an offense that’s currently seventh nationally in S&P+ and 16th in yards per play. If you hire Chad Morris, you take some of that Mike Gundy money and buy a defensive coordinator.)

Chad Morris wouldn’t have been anyone’s first choice, before or after Sunday. But there is reason to hope.

It is simply a much harder sell with a more known entity like Dave Doeren.

Dave Doeren is the guy NC State hoped would make a difference. After a 3-9 first season, Doeren went 8-5, 7-6, 7-6, and is 8-4 this year. Tom O’Brien’s last three years at NC State:  9-4, 8-5, 7-5.

Chad Morris (and Jeff Brohm, and Tee Martin, and a bunch of other guys) is an unknown. He might be good. He might not be. But I can hope.

We already know much more about Dave Doeren. Another power conference school (and one with a lower standard of success, traditionally) already hoped he was the guy to move them forward, and so far he has only achieved the same things his predecessor did before being fired.

It is simply much, much harder to hope in Dave Doeren than an unknown.

Consider this as well:  five of Tennessee’s first seven games next year are vs West Virginia, Florida, at Georgia, at Auburn, and Alabama. That is a challenge, to say the least. If Tennessee takes a beating in some or all of those games, who do you want to take that beating?

If it’s Tee Martin, the narrative is patience. I have no idea if Tee Martin would be a successful coach at Tennessee if he took the job right now, but I do know no one would get more patience from the fan base. If he starts 2-5 and finishes below .500 his first year, fans would handle it much better. But they will also handle it better if it’s someone like Chad Morris, someone who walks in the door with more hope. Tennessee is likely to struggle next season no matter who is wearing the headset. But they’re 2-5 with Dave Doeren, he will get far less benefit of the doubt because he will inherit far less hope. Even though one year on the job doesn’t prove much of anything, some will say they’re already out on Dave Doeren because deep down they were out on him from day one. I fear Tennessee needs more hope than he can currently provide.

Hope isn’t just about morale. It’s about ticket sales and patience. It’s about keeping love alive even when faith is dormant. Reasonable fans – which I always believe are the vast majority of Tennessee’s paying customers – will always be invested if you give them hope.

(Also, in the hope department:  Les Miles. It is baffling to me that he can’t even get an interview. It’s easy to view this as a crisis, which makes one look for safety, and Les Miles is the safest pick on the board. I can easily find hope in Les Miles.)

If the Vols hire Doeren, I will support him. I won’t take it out on him. But hope will be more difficult to come by at a time when Tennessee needs it most. And patience will wear thinner, faster at a time when Tennessee is likely to need more of it.

Even if we lack faith in the decision makers, they might be able to see how such a hire is beneficial to them too. With Tennessee’s name in the national sports news for reasons they don’t like, I’m sure it’s tempting to just hire someone and try to move on. But it is far better for those decision makers in the long run to not panic, at least listen to the people, and make a hire they can find hope in. The longer we can hope, the longer we’re invested. And, in this case, the more time they might buy for themselves before the unrest skips right over the head coach and goes to the top of the ladder. It’s already there tonight. But there is still time to make a hopeful hire that benefits both them and the fans.

The conversations about why we have no faith in the decision makers needs to take place anyway. But Tennessee also needs a football coach; even if not tonight, relatively soon. There are still good options out there. You don’t have to panic. And you should never underestimate the value of hope.

 

The relationship between Tennessee’s decision makers and Tennessee’s fan base is at an all-time low, at a moment when Tennessee’s football program just concluded its all-time worst season.

Things are bad. How can Tennessee make them better?

We’ll get to how a good hire would help in a minute. But first, the relationship itself.

Fans don’t usually get to be the decision makers, which is what made yesterday’s events so remarkable. A diverse cross-section of Tennessee fans, local politicians, former players, and local media raised their voices in varying degrees of negativity on the impending hire of Greg Schiano. Our combined noise became the sound of change. The powers that be made their choice, but the people got the last word. And not at the end of a season’s worth of protests, but in a matter of hours.

The list of Tennessee’s decision makers, in this case, seems to be exceptionally short. John Currie played this search close to the vest to ensure secrecy, but far too close to ensure receptivity. I applaud his ninja skills; they simply would have come in far more handy if paired with any ability to take the pulse of the fan base.

The fact that Currie, Chancellor Davenport, however many Haslams and whoever else was on the short list believed this was both a right and acceptable hire for Tennessee is beyond alarming. When those making the decisions are so out of touch with the people, you get new decisions and, perhaps, new decision makers. It just happened a lot faster yesterday.

I don’t want Tennessee’s next coach to be decided by a vote of the fan base. I assume the powers that be have access to information I do not. This turned out to be the case six years ago, when Tennessee went against the vast majority of fan opinion and fired Bruce Pearl. I argued the Vols should keep him in the face of up to a one-year show-cause. Turns out he was looking at three. The powers that be made the right move then, even when it was unpopular.

Tennessee’s decision makers don’t need to act on every request from the voice of the fan base. But they do need to hear it. And they need to know it well enough to recognize and, in Schiano’s case, predict it. If you are so out of touch you couldn’t see this reaction coming, this isn’t a functional relationship.

John Currie’s statement today didn’t do anything to repair this relationship. At an obviously crucial juncture, what Currie essentially chose to communicate today was that he worked hard on this search, did thoroughly research Schiano (including Penn State), and actually knew him well. But he clearly doesn’t know the fan base well.

At some point between now and a press conference introducing Tennessee’s next head football coach, it is a very good idea for John Currie to address the media. Hold a separate press conference, do an interview, something. You cannot answer questions (or refuse to answer questions) about Schiano for the first time when you’re supposed to be introducing the next guy. It’s unfair to the coach, the fans, and the media. No coach should be asked to sign up for that. Even if Currie is non-confrontational by nature, now is the moment for maturity.

When we do get around to hiring a new coach? Tennessee would appear to have a few options.

The Familiar Faces

• David Cutcliffe, Duke (reportedly staying at Duke as I type)
• Tee Martin, Southern Cal offensive coordinator

Both would scratch an itch many in the fan base have had since Phillip Fulmer was forced out nine years ago. These are our guys.

More than a feel-good story, if Tennessee’s brand has in fact been significantly damaged by the events of this weekend, securing someone with a direct connection to the university may be the smartest play. There are plenty of jobs open and plenty of situations that will look more stable than ours. Cutcliffe and/or Martin may in fact be Tennessee’s best play.

As the one was the other’s offensive coordinator at Tennessee, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Cutcliffe is 63 years old and spent six seasons at Ole Miss as a younger man, fired far too soon. Since leaving Tennessee a second time Cutcliffe has been at Duke, putting together a remarkable run including five bowl appearances in the last six years and a division title in 2013. (As I was typing this, Chris Low reported Cutcliffe informed Tennessee he would be staying at Duke).

Martin has been at Southern Cal since 2012, serving as offensive coordinator the last two years. The Trojans are 16th in offensive S&P+ this year, 15th in yards per play. His name was attached to Jon Gruden’s fantasy staff for both his role as an OC but also his recruiting prowess. He knows Rocky Top, but has no head coaching experience. With both, you’re selling family.

The Up-and-Comers

• Jeff Brohm, Purdue
• Willie Taggart, Oregon
• Chad Morris, SMU
• Jeremy Pruitt, Alabama defensive coordinator

A few days ago, this was the tier below Dan Mullen. Now this could be where Tennessee finds its best play. Brohm and Taggart are at power five schools, but both are just finishing their first year. Morris, the former Clemson offensive coordinator, is finishing his third season at SMU in taking the program from 2-10 to 7-5. Pruitt has led some of the nation’s best defenses at Florida State, Georgia, and Alabama in the last five years, but has never been a head coach.

The sample sizes are small, and with that comes uncertainty. Brohm won two conference titles in three years at Western Kentucky following in Taggart’s footsteps, then got Purdue from 3-9 to 6-6 on the field, from 105th to 41st in S&P+. Taggart went 7-5 at Oregon after a 4-1 start before quarterback Justin Herbert was injured.

What you’re selling here is hope that early successful returns will lead to more of the same at Tennessee and in the SEC. All of these guys might be a good head coach in this league, or none of them. But there is enough reason to hope. (The most difficult name to sell I’ve seen on a hot board is Dave Doeren, who VolQuest had listed at the bottom of theirs today. Doeren is the guy NC State hoped would take them to the next level, but the last four years is 8-5, 7-6, 7-6, and 8-4. That may be fine for NC State, even if it’s awfully similar to what Tom O’Brien did, but there would be little to hope for in terms of someone like him doing more at Tennessee. Hope, even in the midst of uncertainty, is a far easier and more important sell.)

The Rick Barnes

• Les Miles, former LSU coach

When all of this started two weeks ago, I wondered at the end of our podcast about why Les Miles couldn’t even make a hot board. Proven winner, power conference, no buyout, great recruiter. These were more hopeful days of Gruden and Frost, so we didn’t spend much time on it, but it seemed strange to me. At this point, it might seem foolish if Tennessee didn’t include him in their search.

Tennessee has always been more than one step away from a national championship in this search; that truth is easier to swallow when you’re past your top choices. I’m not sure Les Miles could win a championship at Tennessee. But could he help this program take its next step? Is he the best option now that we’re at this point? I could buy it.

You may have your favorites out of these list, or might want to include another name or two from this tier. But all of them are guys fans could and would rally around, especially after last weekend. All of them would have important strengths. All of them could give us reason to hope.

I don’t know what the right move is for the powers that be. The choices aren’t as sexy as the first time around. But getting a good fit with greater transparency is a critical step for a fragile football team and a fragile relationship between the administration and the fans.