Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Who the Vols should hire...

I believe Phil Fulmer is a great football coach who is a victim of his own success. I think he is judged against his own record, when he was winning 85% of his games. I think that is totally unrealistic and I think the Tennessee job is, at best, the 4th best job in the conference. But none of that matters. I may think the fan base is stupid, but I cannot deny that they have turned on him. It appears inevitable that Fulmer will be gone at the end of the year.

So we move on to who to hire if you are Tennessee. Most of the names that have come up regarding the job are hilarious to me. If you replace one of the most successful coaches ever in a conference where it is very hard to win, you better think long and hard about who that is.

Who could you hire that would leave their current job?
Who is a great coach at a place where the UT job would be an upgrade?
Who is a guy that has competed against and defeated teams in the conference?
Who is a guy with recruiting ties in the South?
Who is a guy that nobody could ever say is a worse coach than Fulmer?
Who is a guy that you would feel comfortable coaching against Saban, Meyer, and Richt?

In my opinion, you have to go get somebody proven to be better than Fulmer if you are gonna fire him. That list is very short in terms of record.

The perfect choice for the Vols is the man that will stand across the field from them in their next game... Darth Visor himself.... back up the Brinks and get Steve Spurrier. He is so competitive and realizes that it is freaking impossible to win big at South Carolina.
There is your huge name that makes sense. If he failed for some reason, nobody could ever say it was a bad hire.
Hey, and he is a Tennessee native.

That is what I would do. Steve Spurrier. I don't buy for a second that he has lost the fire or the desire to be great, I think he is at a tough place to win.