When Phillip Fulmer was hired to succeed Johnny Majors in 1992, no one doubted Fulmer's full commitment to building a quality program that peaked with the 1998 national championship.  After all, Fulmer was a Tennessee guy who loved the university.  He wasn't flashy, but over the course of a seventeen-year career, he compiled a 152-52 record.

So, when Fulmer was cast aside last year, his successor was everything that Fulmer was not: Brash, cocky, smug, arrogant and above all not from Tennessee.  That's why it's no surprise that Lane Kiffin and his traveling circus have pulled up stakes in Knoxville and pointed the wagons toward Los Angeles.

One really has to wonder why Kiffin would do that.  USC is about to be nuked back to the stone age by the NCAA, prompting former coach Pete Carroll to jump out of the airplane with a parachute emblazoned with the Seattle Seahawks log.  USC couldn't find anyone who would even talk about the job, including Mike Riley, Mike Berlotti and Jack Del Rio.  Finally, in what have been a whirlwind romance, former USC assistant Kiffin took the bait, called the band and headed off to California.

Vol nation screamed good riddance and literally chased him out of town.  Now what?  National signing day is a couple of weeks away and industrious coaches like Nick Saban and Urban Meyer will be working the phones hard trying to acquire talent that thought they were committed to playing under Kiffin at UT.  Unless the Vols can land a big fish in a couple of days, this has the potential to be  a thin recruiting class on Rocky Top.

If it were up to me, I'd hire Fulmer back.  He may not be the greatest coach that ever lived, but he certainly loves Tennessee and he wouldn't  embarrass the university the way Kiffin has.  Actually, it was more like the university embarrassed themselves by hiring the kid in the first place.  If not Fulmer, perhaps Duke coach David Cuttcliffe, although he has yet to prove he can win as a head coach on the big stage. Then there are a few other suspects like Texas coach in waiting Will Musgrave. 

Meanwhile, Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton looks out his office window at the growing crowd and wonders what will become of him.  Phil Fulmer and Urban Meyer share a beer and a laugh.  And, in Lubbock, Tommy Tuberville wishes this would have happened last week.