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Tennessee fires Jeremy Pruitt for cause, Fulmer to step down as AD, Josh Heupel hired

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satyanash

satyanash 14281

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Joe Rexrode: No, Tennessee, it’s not on the fans to be excited about Josh Heupel

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Most people in the first week on a job are afforded some grace, some time to memorize their badge number and the names of their co-workers, a few light tasks before performing the one that will define everything.

Danny White, in one week on Rocky Top, has gone from The Rising Star AD Recruit who Shows Tennessee is Serious to The Unimaginative Coach Recruiter who Confirms Tennessee is Screwed. He threw himself into a PowerPoint for the big presentation to wow the big client, found it wasn’t cooperating as hoped and settled for a basic slideshow he had used at his previous job. The client mustered a faint courtesy smile. We all have no idea, of course, how Josh Heupel will fare as UT’s 27th football coach. But if you’re a realistic Tennessee fan, this is as sobering as a three-hour board meeting.

If you’re an unrealistic Tennessee fan, and I suspect one or two exist, you thought a James Franklin or Luke Fickell would jump at this job. That they didn’t, along with others who have floated through college football media that they were approached — Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck, SMU’s Sonny Dykes, Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott — is not a surprise. What’s surprising is that White resorted to Heupel this quickly, apparently before others whose trajectories trump Heupel’s were given a look.

Gus Malzahn would have been a markedly better hire. Tom Allen might not have considered leaving Indiana, but he’s worth the try anyway. Lane Kiffin could have been rationalized, as so many things in college sports are. Jamey Chadwell, Billy Napier, Will Healy, these coaches will be compared by Vols fans in the years to come to the coach who as of last week worked for White at Central Florida. And I’d wager Chadwell and Healy, at least, would let Bobby Petrino drive them on motorcycle to Knoxville if it meant getting the job.

Instead, we’ve got UCF North. Or North UCF? How about UCF-Knoxville? A slight rearranging of the letters in UCFK creates the exact word a large percentage of the Tennessee fan base said when Heupel’s hire became public, and exactly what zero percent of fans of other SEC teams said.

White said at Wednesday’s introductory press conference that Heupel was “our No. 1 option,” of course, and that no one else was offered the job. This is why search firms are handy, because they gauge the interest of prospective candidates so that an AD only technically offers the job to the person who is already a guaranteed “yes.” If Heupel were truly the one all along, he could have flown up with White last week and UT could have saved the $120,000 on the search firm. Every dollar counts for a school that investigated its own program, fired Jeremy Pruitt for cause and is attempting to get out of paying any of his $12.6 million buyout (which his lawyer seems confident it won’t pull off).

Heupel wasn’t the one all along, shouldn’t have been and shouldn’t be UT’s coach right now. That doesn’t mean he has no chance. The Tennessee fan who just wants to believe things are going to get better, more than a decade and five coaches now into this era of misery, can point to Heupel’s 28-8 record at UCF and the fact that his résumé is technically better than the previous four coaches who followed the last successful coach, Phillip Fulmer (in reverse order, Pruitt, Butch Jones, Derek Dooley, Kiffin) when they got the job.

That fan can take solace in the fact that Heupel is very different from his predecessor. That’s how these things tend to go. When Pruitt was brought in three years ago, in a rushed tack-on search conducted by Fulmer — after Fulmer replaced John Currie as AD, after Currie’s search went the way of a Petrino joyride — Pruitt brought defensive acumen honed at Alabama, Georgia and Florida State. This was welcome after Jones’ defenses got progressively more inept. Pruitt didn’t seem to give a rip about media or silly slogans, two Jones obsessions. He was a ball coach, goshdarn it, and a collector of talent who trusted his own keen evaluations over the word of others.

Now that Pruitt has flamed out, largely because he couldn’t develop or pick a quarterback, wasn’t it nice to see a coach at the podium Wednesday who knows how to conjugate verbs and has no known issues identifying vegetables? A former national championship quarterback and Heisman finalist at Oklahoma who has had great success coaching quarterbacks, and whose hyper-paced (heuper-paced?) offenses at UCF were among the nation’s most productive? See how easy this is?
Josh Heupel is an offensive-minded and quarterback-friendly coach who compiled a 28-8 record at UCF. (James Guillory / USA Today)

After Pruitt was fired, I talked to five college coaches, three of them current FBS head coaches, about the UT job and how it is viewed in the coaching community. The responses were a mixed bag. Three of those coaches weighed in on the Heupel hire Wednesday, as such: Coach #1: “Great coach. Offense is explosive. Great hire.” Coach #2: “Great hire, expected with White taking the AD job.”

Coach #3: “He’s always done a really good job with quarterbacks, so I’m sure he will get a good one. That’s been a huge part of what Tennessee has missed. Problem is, in the games that matter he won’t have better talent. You worry if they can outscore people in that league because he hasn’t helped his defense with what he does on offense.”

Yes, there is defense to worry about, along with the downward trend of the UCF program, notably on the recruiting trail, since Heupel took it over from Scott Frost in the wake of an undefeated 2017 season. And there’s the fact that he was fired as OC at Oklahoma by his college coach, Bob Stoops, and the fattening up his Missouri offenses did on bad teams. For example, the 2017 Tigers crushed Jones’ Vols 50-17, leading to Jones’ firing with two games left in the season. That Missouri team averaged 37.5 points per game. It also went 0-6 and scored 18 points per game against teams that reached bowl games. Heupel’s offensive style has been so copied and studied since a few years ago when it was a nightmarish outlier for opponents, teams are in a better position to handle it.

And there’s no telling how his understated personality will handle leading one of the most covered college football teams in the country or play on the recruiting trail against the SEC’s best. He’ll need poachers to compete, sort of like Brian Neidermeyer on Pruitt’s staff, except he’ll need them to avoid being investigated and fired and accused of committing NCAA violations. As other coaches who have looked at this job in recent weeks have no doubt noticed, Tennessee isn’t afraid to investigate its own if they aren’t winning.

As you may have noticed, UCF fans don’t seem broken up about losing Heupel. But fans and media are wrong all the time, and it’s about time for someone to take this job at Tennessee and overdeliver. It’s also OK to put some trust in the guy who a week ago represented renewed Tennessee hope. We will never know every detail of White’s search, but it was too fast for Heupel to be lower than, what, Plan H? Some of the people he didn’t approach, along with his obvious familiarity with Heupel, suggest he thinks this has a chance. A chance at what? They talked about championships Wednesday, typical intro presser fare, but at this point, if Heupel can lead Tennessee out of embarrassment and make this a better job for the next guy, that’s a win.

And it stands to reason White would get to hire that next guy. His arrival wasn’t just celebrated last week because he has a knack for finding coaches, he’s a modern AD with a strong fundraising history and the tools to lead Tennessee for a long time. That would go a long way toward turning this place around. And now that the crazy first week has been completed, he should familiarize himself with the past 13 years in Knoxville and never again say something like this of UT fans: “Some of you are failing right now. Why would we want to be negative?”

What the UCFK, Danny. These people have been through way too much bad football, and spent way too much money on it, to expect them to stand and applaud the hire of Josh Heupel. Besides, the customer’s always right is first-day stuff.

 

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Tex Pete

Tex Pete 20179

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28 minutes ago, satyanash said:

Joe Rexrode: No, Tennessee, it’s not on the fans to be excited about Josh Heupel

 

Whatever delusions we have, we pale in comparison to Tennessee mouth breathers. They've won exactly two national championships and haven't been a relevant team in any of their players' lifetimes.

Our downward spiral began when Mack Brown put his feet on his desk the day after Vince Young long-strided across the Rose Bowl goal line against USC. We were still relevant, but our staff was not putting in the work on the recruiting trail or in the film room. Tennessee was also falling off at the same time. To put it in perspective, as agonizing as our team has been to watch for years now, Tennessee's has been considerably worse.

From the 2006 season (when our downward slide started off the field):

TEXAS-          122-68 (64.2%) In conference- 78-49 (61.4%)

TENNESSEE-  97-90 (51.87%) In conference- 47-75 (38.5%)

I included conference because the SEC pads their records with shitty non-conference teams.

In conclusion, we have sucked. Tennessee's suckitude is on another level. 

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camel at sea

camel at sea 589

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8 hours ago, BHMCruiser said:

I don't think that's true. Tennessee itself does not have that much talent and there's no way they beat out Ole Miss, LSU, Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina, Clemson, Georgia and Florida for what is inside that circle. Even when they do, they won't have talented depth. I believe that Sarkisian will kick LSU's ass in recruiting, so that just adds more pressure. 

 

Maybe you're right, but Alabama, for example, only has two Tennessee players on its roster (only one of which I've ever heard of). Clemson has six. If Tennessee had a lot of elite talent, both those programs would have more. 

You can consistently land Top 15 classes at Tennessee.  If they just play up to their talent level, and beat the teams they're supposed to beat, then they're an 8-4/9-3 program on an annual basis that should at least not get blown off the field by Florida/Georgia most years, even if they are slightly less talented.  They haven't been close to that in a long time.  Total program mismanagement.

I don't see Heupel as a guy who can create some separation between Tennessee and Missouri/South Carolina/Kentucky.  The job is good enough that Tennessee should be a step above those programs but they haven't had a guy in Knoxville who can consistently win those games in fifteen years.  

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Skipper

Skipper 6103

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I think it's funny that a bunch of TN fans talked themselves into the Heupel hire partly because they arrogantly assumed he could easily just hire back Jeff Lebby as OC who is in a significantly better position as the Ole Miss OC (and they just paid him top tier coordinator $$) and he's a candidate for the UCF HC job.   I would be shocked if he moved from Ole Miss to TN. That fanbase doesn't seem to grasp that TN is no longer a destination job at any coaching level.

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Vertigo

Vertigo 20267

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10 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I think it's funny that a bunch of TN fans talked themselves into the Heupel hire partly because they arrogantly assumed he could easily just hire back Jeff Lebby as OC who is in a significantly better position as the Ole Miss OC (and they just paid him top tier coordinator $$) and he's a candidate for the UCF HC job.   I would be shocked if he moved from Ole Miss to TN. That fanbase doesn't seem to grasp that TN is no longer a destination job at any coaching level.

What coordinator wouldn't want to come coach with reduced scholarships and postseason bans?

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Tex Pete

Tex Pete 20179

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13 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I think it's funny that a bunch of TN fans talked themselves into the Heupel hire partly because they arrogantly assumed he could easily just hire back Jeff Lebby as OC who is in a significantly better position as the Ole Miss OC (and they just paid him top tier coordinator $$) and he's a candidate for the UCF HC job.   I would be shocked if he moved from Ole Miss to TN. That fanbase doesn't seem to grasp that TN is no longer a destination job at any coaching level.

That's essentially what my comparison post above is about. Tennessee right now is a shit job. The rebuild will be a monumental task, and the money is the only thing that could possibly justify taking the job...and the money isn't very good compared to an actual major program.

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thunderlounge

thunderlounge 7758

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8 hours ago, Vertigo said:

What coordinator wouldn't want to come coach with reduced scholarships and postseason bans?


This. Any coach not in desperate need isn’t going near them, yet. 
 

I say yet as who knows what the NCAA does. Once that shit is handed down, if it isn’t a death sentence (although a popcorn fart could have doomed them anyway) they may be able to get some younger talent trying to prove themselves. If they don’t do so well, they have a little bit of an out. If they do well at their job, they could spin it the other way. 
 

Still aren’t getting anybody respectable though. 
 

Heupel took the check, and when the time comes will take a step down to OC somewhere. Worst case is some time with Saban as an analyst and a decent salary for a year or two. 

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 48977

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Small victory...

Sources: Tennessee’s Josh Heupel lands key recruiting staffer, holds off USC

By John Brice -  January 28, 2021

Josh Heupel’s still unpacking on Rocky Top, meeting the Tennessee Vols’ team in its entirety Thursday and ushering in a new era of Vols’ football.

That means staff decisions. Lots of staff decisions.  Heupel made a big move Thursday to fortify his recruiting department moving forward at Tennessee.

Having just two weeks ago lost this staffer to the University of Southern Cal, Heupel was able to retain Angelia Brummett – just as she was set to depart Orlando, Florida, and begin anew as Clay Helton’s Director of On-Campus Recruiting at USC.

A University of Tennessee graduate with previous experience in the Vols’ recruiting department under the guidance of venerable personnel guru Bob Welton, now at Alabama, Brummett shifted instead to Rocky Top. Sources from both programs told FootballScoop that Brummett could not pass up the opportunity to remain alongside Heupel and his former UCF Director of Player Personnel, Brandon Lawson, back at her alma mater.

It’s a key early staffing victory for Tennessee’s new coach, the program’s sixth full-time head coach since 2008.

Earlier this month, as they dispatched previous head coach Jeremy Pruitt amidst an ongoing investigation in impermissible recruiting practices and jettisoned Phillip Fulmer into retirement, Tennessee officials also wiped out the entirety of the Vols’ previous recruiting staff headed by Bethany Gunn and three of her staff members.

By retaining Lawson and Brummett, both of whom have previous experience in Tennessee’s recruiting department, Heupel has positioned himself to what should be a smoother process to establishing his recruiting department on Rocky Top.

Additionally, high school coaches and former Vols’ players told FootballScoop on Thursday that they already had begun to hear from members of Tennessee’s new football staff.

“We have to keep kids inside this state here (at UT),” Heupel said during his introductory press conference. “That’s for multiple reasons: They’re going to come play championship-caliber football, they’re going to be developed (and) they’re going to have the opportunity to move on to the NFL.

“They’re going to get a great degree, and they’re going to be empowered to live inside this state once they’re done with that degree. But we have to do that inside our own borders.”

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johnny utah

johnny utah 68

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On 2/2/2021 at 9:45 PM, Knoxtnhorn said:

Pretty effing shitty to trapdoor a recruit the day before signing day.

https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/tennessee-football/high-school-coach-rips-tennessee-for-pulling-scholarship-offer-right-before-national-signing-day/

I heard an interview yesterday on JOX (Birmingham sports radio station) with the head coach at Oxford and needless to say he was pissed.  Basically said that TN would not be welcome at Oxford or any other stops that he may have.  And that he has talked to several other head coaches in Alabama and let it be known what they did and how he feels about it.  He said that while he can't keep a kid from going to TN he would advise against it.  Not a good or smart start for Josh. 

(I told my wife about this and she said doesn't surprise her coming from a sooner.)

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 48977

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Tennessee is helping Auburn pay part of Kevin Steele's buyout 😂😂😂

March 4, 2021: Confirming a formality, Heupel fills his first Tennessee staff in hiring Ekeler. There’s always the possibility Steele remains in Knoxville in an off-the-field role, though there’s been no indication of such an arrangement at this time.

According to the terms of the contract he signed less than two months and zero games ago, Steele would be owed a $900,000 buyout from Tennessee. He’s due $5 million from Auburn regardless; the Auburn buyout would be offset by Tennessee’s.

So now here we are, at the tail end of the 2020-21 coaching market, and a guy who served as interim or acting head coach at two schools and has previous coordinator experience at Alabama, LSU and Clemson is without an on-the-field job.

https://footballscoop.com/news/a-timeline-of-kevin-steeles-whirlwind-carousel/

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LTtxfan

LTtxfan 48977

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Rocky Top Reset: A $50 million gambit to save Tennessee football, athletics

By John Brice -    March 10, 2021 

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The reasons, perhaps, are debatable – pending one’s point of view.  Either Tennessee adopted a great impetus to to play on the figuratively cleanest of playing fields. Or something perhaps because Jeremy Pruitt’s allegedly boorish antics, as well as his on-field losing, did not leave space for any equity within the University of Tennessee football program.

Whatever the viewpoint on getting to here, UT athletics is at a bit of an unprecedented ground zero.  Where things now stand are indisputable: the University of Tennessee is less than two months into yet another wholesale razing of its athletics department and, more specifically, its flagship, revenue-driving football program.

“I would say tripping upon something in athletics that then sent us into looking at what was going on in football,” UT chancellor Donde Plowman said last week via Zoom, “and a number of changes that were made there.”

In: athletics director Danny White, football coach Josh Heupel. Myriad staff hires for both.

Out: Pruitt, former national champion football coach and failed athletics director Phillip Fulmer, with a bevy of additional dismissals.

The cost: guaranteed now at more than $56 million to Tennessee’s coffers.

The start: fresh.

“I couldn’t be happier with the hiring of Danny White,” Plowman said. “Once we realized we were going to need a new coach, Phillip made the choice to say a new A.D. ought to make that choice.  

“Danny White, you’re going to get to meet him soon You’re going to love him, he’s a rock-star. He brings so much energy into the room.

“The staff that Josh has put together, it’s impressive. I know that Tennessee fans are tired of hearing we’re going to rebuild this; but I’m going to tell you, this time it’s going to work. And I’m so excited, we’re doing this the right way. We’re determined to get this right. We want a world-class athletics department and a world-class university all in one.”

Plowman, the UT system’s highest-ranking employee below President Randy Boyd, insists the challenge at Tennessee is White’s draw.

“(White) said straight-up, if you had everything moving along great, I wouldn’t be interested in this job,” Plowman shared.

What a challenge White – and equally, if not more so, Heupel – face.

Consider, then: football is in its all-time longest drought without an SEC championship (1998); women’s basketball likewise is working its way out of its longest stretch without a berth in the Final Four (2008); the school is just a few years removed from settling a Title IX lawsuit; it only recently has completed its severance payments to fired former football coach Butch Jones while insisting it will not pay Pruitt after terminating him with cause.

Pruitt, per multiple sources, is contesting his with-cause firing and seeking legal recourse to regain funds from his more than $12 million buyout presently being withheld.

Here is a dive into the $50-plus million Rocky Top roll of the dice to fix an athletics department taking orders from its sixth athletics director since 2011 and its 10th  head football coach – six full-time, four interim – since 2008.

The signature costs are the contracts of Heupel (six years, $24 million guaranteed) and White (five years, almost $10 million guaranteed) as well as their combined buyouts of $6.1 million from the University of Central Florida.

Additional major line-item budget expenses include fired offensive coordinator Jim Chaney’s final $1.7 million salary on the last of his three-year deal. Chaney’s new salary as an offensive analyst with the New Orleans Saints is expected to only minimally mitigate UT’s incurred costs.

Though UT lists Fulmer as having elected to retire, he is collecting $37,500 for the next 33 months – $1.312 million – which exactly matches the terms of his contract being voided in a dismissal.

Heupel’s top pair of assistants – defensive coordinator Tim Banks and offensive coordinator Alex Golesh – are guaranteed a combined $6.45 million across the next three years unless they are dismissed with cause or take a job that requires them to buy out their Vols’ contracts. Banks is scheduled for $4.2 million guaranteed; Golesh $2.25 million.

Offensive line coach Glen Elarbee ($1.5 million for two guaranteed years) and defensive line coach Rodney Garner ($1.325 million including retention bonus for two years) account for nearly another $3 million in guaranteed expenditures.

The remainder of Heupel’s inaugural staff has contracts totaling $3.8 million in salary guarantees through early 2023.

Assistant coaches now seeking employment as no longer members of the Vols’ staff but still earning salaries from Tennessee after recent dismissals include Kevin Steele ($900,000), Chris Weinke ($450,000) and Joe Osovet ($250,000). Additionally, Tennessee still is on the hook for a $650,000 salary to Jimmy Brumbaugh as part of the two-year deal he was given a year ago by Pruitt, who fired Brumbaugh midway through the Vols’ loss to Kentucky last October.

There’s another $295,000, per figures supplied to FootballScoop, in Tennessee’s legal costs for retaining the Bond, Schoeneck and King law firm in its internal investigation into Pruitt’s football program and recruiting practices.

The grand total: $56,481,500.

The risk: never been greater.

 

Edited by LTtxfan
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Knoxtnhorn

Knoxtnhorn 5936

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Got rid of Fulmer  Might as well try to keep the Fulmer Cup.

 

https://www.wate.com/news/top-stories/at-least-3-ut-football-players-arrested-on-drug-charges-at-student-dorm/

 

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Three University of Tennessee football players appeared on a campus crime log showing they were arrested Tuesday, March 9 on drug charges.

The log shows Martavius French, of Memphis; Isaac Washington, of Pilot Mountain, N.C.; and Aaron Willis, of Midlothian, Virginia are charged with simple possession and unlawful drug paraphernalia.

Also, the record shows Clinton Warren, of Memphis and an “unlisted juvenile” were arrested at the same time and location. Law enforcement generally does not identify anyone arrested who is 17 years old or younger.

 

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Knoxtnhorn

Knoxtnhorn 5936

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To add...

 

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The University of Tennessee Police Department is reminding students to be extra safe in their dorms after they said a group of men assaulted and robbed a student in a residence hall.
In a notice to the campus community, officials said that a burglary and assault incident happened at Stokely Hall at around 8 p.m. Tuesday evening. They said that a person's roommate answered the door and was immediately assaulted by one male.

They said that three or four other males entered the apartment and walked to a room where they took items from the victims.
Both a witness and the victim said they did not know the suspects' identities.
Police said that they tried to find out more information from the victim but he refused to discuss the incident.
In the safety notice, police recommended people avoid propping doors open and allowing visitors to walk in behind them.
They also recommended people confirm the identity of visitors before opening the door.
Information about the items that were stolen or the cause of the incident was not immediately available."

 

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ousux

ousux 5587

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No but they are implying that we will make sure they befall the same fate if they start winning..... LMFAO

https://texags.com/forums/5/topics/3438196

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3rd reply in that thread is why aggy likely gets investigated at some point, they truly think NIL is bag game with no repercussions. Of course if they do it will only be because those gotdam sips were scared of the sleeping giant and tipped off the autho-ri-tah.
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Skipper

Skipper 6103

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What are we setting the over/under for NCAA still governing major college football at?  3.5 years?  Their lack of any guidelines or clarity around NIL (vague policies that are seemingly constantly changing and now in direct conflict with laws of multiple states), combined with now attempting to enforce "policy" at large programs, might be the nail in the coffin.   

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