I like Phillip Fulmer.  When I was working in Nashville, he did an interview with our station every week, not because we were the biggest or best sports station, but because we were fair in our interviews. 

It will be a crying shame, if, as the Internet is screaming, this good and decent man who revels in serving the university he truly loves will be put out to pasture. Never mind he's a top ten recruiter and a tireless and successful fund raiser.  Tennessee is now consistently running third to Florida and Georgia in the SEC East and Tennessee fans, thanks largely to Fulmer's accomplishments in the late part of the nineties, demand more.  Phillip Fulmer is clearly a victim of his own competence.

Phillip Fulmer has won 75% of the games he has coached at Tennessee.  Usually, when you do that, you are welcome to stay as long as you'd like.  How many down years did Penn State go through with people screaming for JoPa's retirement before the Nittany Lions became competitive again? 

Yes, this years Vol team is not very good, especially at quarterback.  But with the 85 scholarship rule, it is difficult for anyone to dominate college football.  Last year's champion, LSU won't get to defend their national title and probably won't even make it to the SEC championship game this year.  Maybe Tennessee has been off the last couple of years or maybe it just hasn't had recruits meet their potential, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater, well, that's a bit extreme.

It's understandable why coaches like Greg Robinson, Ty Willingham and even Tommy Bowden lost their jobs, but for the last 17 years, Phillip Fulmer has been one of the most successful college football coaches in America.  And yet Vol fans, alums and perhaps some in the administration want to possibly explore "going in a new direction."

I believe the writers who say that should he lose his job, Phil Fulmer may not ever coach again.  He loves Tennessee, bleeds orange and he's not wired to coach anywhere else.  No, we can see Phil Fulmer kicking back, maybe doing some TV, maybe fishing, but not coaching again.  Whatever he does post UT, the university has benefited from having the decent man from Winchester running it's program.