Lloyd Carr and Phillip Fulmer: One Leaves with Dignity, the Other…
Christopher Gabriel | Nov 19, 2007 | Comments 16
It’s doubtful fans of the Michigan Wolverines and the Tennessee Volunteers would ever agree on much. And yet, both programs mirror each other in many ways: Depending upon the category you choose to look at, all-time wins, bowl wins, bowl appearances or national championships, both schools are top five or top 10 in every one of them. Their respective fan bases are passionate bordering on maniacal, their massive stadiums, Michigan Stadium and Neyland Stadium, are legendary for their unique structures and the roster of coaches, with folks like Bo Schembechler, Fielding Yost, General Robert Neyland and Johnny Majors, is superlative.
And of course, there are two other names: Lloyd Carr and Phillip Fulmer.
This morning in Ann Arbor, Lloyd Carr stepped down from Michigan after 13 seasons that included one national championship, five Big Ten championships and a record of 121-40. It has also included a 1-6 record against Ohio State the past seven seasons and a disastrous loss to Appalachian State to open this season. Diehard Wolverines fans are pretty much divided on whether or not Carr should have remained coach. All of that became moot this morning.
More than anything else, Carr stepped down with dignity and class. Consistently going to bowl games notwithstanding, the program had, arguably, been slipping for some time and although he maintained he still had the passion for the game, Carr said he simply felt it was time to step down; that it was the best thing for Michigan football to go forward. Meanwhile, down in Knoxville . . .
Phillip Fulmer is in his 16th season as head man for the Vols. He has compiled an impressive 145-44 record including the 1998 national championship and two SEC championships. However, like Michigan fans, the folks in Big Orange Nation are divided and restless . . . really restless. On one side of the fence, there are the fans that want Fulmer out. Now. No, not now . . . . . yesterday. And on the other side, the Fulmer loyalists who believe he is irreplaceable.
Tennessee has been underachieving in football since the second half of the 2001 SEC championship game against LSU. The Vols held a 17-7 halftime lead and were 30 minutes away from the national championship game in the Rose Bowl against Miami. Naturally, the Fulmer critics would tell you, the Vols came out for the second half and played vintage Fulmer football. Translation: Playing not to lose.
Final score: LSU 31, Tennessee 20.
The loyalists will quickly tell you, however, that this season the Vols are 8-3, one win away from an SEC east division championship and a trip to Atlanta for the SEC championship game against LSU. Not so fast, say the critics. Those three losses: 59-20 to Florida, 41-17 to Alabama and 45-31 to California. Each of those games was, for one reason or many, an abomination. And when you lose to your two biggest rivals by a combined score of 100-37, the drums of change begin to beat. Loudly.
And that’s really the rub when you speak about Phillip Fulmer. He’s got a fantastic winning percentage and overall coaching resume and yet you can point to dozens of games the Vols have won, against both good and bad teams, that they had no business winning. Be it mental mistakes galore, uninspired play, poor fundamentals, terrible gameplans, awful in-game coaching, an absence of halftime adjustments when the first half was a disaster . . . the list goes on and on of things they do that simply make you shake your head. And against those overmatched teams, the double-digit underdogs that should be put away by halftime, the Vols have to lead the nation in games not decided until well into the 4th quarter. Conversely, against the big boys, if there is another elite-level program that has suffered as many woodshed beatings as the Vols, I haven’t seen it.
When you watch Tennessee on offense in most any year now, they look like they’re playing a different game than teams like USC, Oklahoma, Florida, LSU, Ohio State and about a dozen other programs that have long-since passed Tennessee. And on defense, even the most casual observer has to wonder what defensive coordinator John Chavis is doing week-to-week. Against Florida, Alabama and Cal, it looked like toddlers against men. But against Georgia and Arkansas, the Vols stepped up in a major way.
More than anything else, the serious lack of consistency in virtually any category on either side of the ball defines Phillip Fulmer and his entire staff.
The Vols intimidate no one; the coaching staff gets the team prepared to play one quarter of football per game . . . on a good day, two quarters; Neyland Stadium, which used to be one of the truly great, and deafening, home field advantages in all of sports is little more than Dodger Stadium dressed in orange and yet, there they are, in position to make another march to Atlanta.
Phillip Fulmer is a good man and a fine ambassador for both college football and the University of Tennessee. However, it can be fairly argued that in some ways, the game has passed him by. His overdeveloped sense of loyalty to his coaching staff has allowed the Vols to become second tier in the SEC. And although a victory over Kentucky on Saturday sends the Vols to the SEC championship, it speaks far more to a conference that isn’t quite as great as advertised in preseason.
Steve Spurrier once said that 10-12 years is about all a football coach should log at one university. Lloyd Carr understood this only too well and it’s hard not to have enormous respect for the man, if you didn’t already, when he offered his resignation. It is not a stretch to imagine it won’t be too long before Michigan, with fresh ideas and a new direction, will be right in the thick of the BCS championship mix. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine Tennessee will be in that same BCS championship mix anytime soon until someone takes a long, hard and truly honest look at how far the program as a whole has really fallen.
And in college sports, when a program falls, it rests at the doorstep of one person: The head coach.
Filed Under: College football • Michigan • Sports • Tennessee Volunteers
Come on Christopher! Quit talking about sports all the time! I’m getting tired of it! Gol darn it!
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Love your stuff! Keep on writing!
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The Vols followed up the “Vintage” Fulmer loss to LSU in the SEC Championship with 45-17 thumping of Michigan in the Citrus Bowl. I’m pretty sure you don’t go from one game away from the Nat’l Championship to the Peach Bowl. That was the following year.
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Just for the records before you write a BLOG….Get the facts straight, Fulmer did not lose to Clemson after losing to LSU. For the record he beat ol Carr in the Capital One Bowl. If you report it, get your facts straight.
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Chris: Good Call . . . somehow I switched in the Vols’ 2003 Peach Bowl game with Clemson (Maryland in the Peach was 2002). Correction noted and changed. And in the category of irony upon ironies, as Will mentioned, it was just under a month later after the loss to LSU that the Vols went out and hammered Lloyd Carr’s Michigan team 45-17 in the Citrus Bowl. It was, to be fair, one of Fulmer’s best coaching efforts of his career. However, it was small consolation when thinking about what could have been for that Vols team.
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Chris : Can you say Appy State…what an embarrasment for the Wolverines and it fan base ….just like bama losing to La. Monoroe ( got to love it). I do believe the Vols beat up on michigan in a bowl game….
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Dr. Bubba1: Yes indeed, Doctor B. Funny thing about that game — the Vols were as prepared as any game I can remember in many years. Now, contrast that bowl performance versus one year earlier in the Cotton Bowl against Kansas State. Irrespective of which team was better, there was no doubt which team was better prepared. The focus and intensity so apparent against Michigan in the Citrus were non-existent in Dallas that day. It’s the inconsistency that is forever constant.
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There is no such word as “irrespective”. There is the word “respective”.
Yes, UT and its fans could have cared less about playing in a “cold, icey” enviroment at the Cotton Bowl after we had lost in the SEC championship game.
One thing that Fulmer did was get rid of “problems” which brought about inconsistence.
When will the Big Ten play a championship game like we do in the SEC in football? The SEC Championship game is tough and losing takes a lot out of a team. Let’s see what would happen if the Big Ten had to play such a title game to be in a BCS game.
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Dr. Bubba: I hate to be the one to tell you, but check the Bubba household dictionary my friend. “Irrespective” is both an adjective and an adverb. It means “without regard to something else; something specific.”
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So what your saying is that Fulmer is a bad coach because he doesnt have his teams motivated for every game in the last 16 years? And he won games he had no business winning, name some and I can point to any program or coach in the land to field that lame argument. Most UT fans dont want Fulmer to go just yet, and you can argue all you want about how he is slipping but you cant argue with his record! Quit writing about this guy and comparing him to coaches he hardly coached against and go ask why Joe Pa or Bowden arent leaving with a little dignity. You must feel like bashing a great coach because your favorite team losses to him all the time.
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Answer my question about a Big Ten championship game?
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Monterey Vol: Thank you for weighing in; I appreciate your comments. Allow me a few thoughts back at you . . . Had you read what I wrote a bit more closely, you might have realized the crux of my post: I believe the Tennessee football program has regressed for a number of years now and the Vols are overdue for a new man at the helm. You said “Most UT fans don’t want Fulmer to go just yet?” Ok, fair enough. Now tell me, of the Vols fans you’ve spoken to, do you believe that number makes up “most”? And I’m pretty sure I cited Fulmer’s coaching record as “impressive” while calling him a good ambassador for college football and the University of Tennessee. Meanwhile, comparing Fulmer to Carr is hardly unfair. You don’t need to coach against someone to be compared with him; it comes with the territory of being in the sporting arena. The great 1990′s Michael Jordan-led Bulls teams were often compared to the 1986 Celtics team, arguably the greatest NBA team of all time. The actual, man-for-man rosters never played one another but were compared by both the print and broadcast media endlessly. Fair? Doesn’t matter; the point is moot because the comparisons invariably came. And I absolutely agree with you on JoePa and Bowden. Finally, my favorite team . . . I’m sorry to say you really missed on that one.
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Dr. Bubba: I couldn’t agree with you more on the Big Ten. For that matter, the PAC 10 as well. What the SEC and Big 12 in particular have to go through just to get to a BCS bowl is brutal. I’ve long felt that the Big 10 and PAC 10 should also have a championship game. Of course, it’s not happening until each conference expands by at least two more teams. Then, they’d almost be forced to have a championship game.
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I have the dubious distinction of being a huge Michigan Wolverines fan living in the heart of SEC country in Tennessee. I do not like the Vols mainly because of the wreckless abandon with which most fans here espouse their opinions about the superior teams, schedules and competition in the SEC as compared to every conference in the country. I believe that the SEC is every bit as tough as any other in the land but stop short of agreeing about its superiority. The college football landscape has for a long time now been getting more and more level for all teams and conferences. I believe that you have hit the nail on the head in respect to the parallels of the two programs, Michigan and Tennessee, however the difference is that although Tennessee has not played up to their potential, ie: loss to Vanderbilt two years ago, they still do not have as consistently poor of a record against a bitter rival as Michigan has against Ohio State. Anyone who even casually follows the Big Ten knows that Michigan/Ohio State is the biggest game of the season for both teams and will normally determine the Big Ten champ. I also have to say that if the Big Ten wants to dispel the myth of SEC dominance two things must happen: #1Non-Conference games must include viable top 10 opponents and they must BEAT these opponents(Michigan this year has payed the price for this type of scheduling and Ohio State has earned the paper tiger distinction this year for not doing it) #2Michigan must win bowl games especially those against SEC teams (see their alltime bowl record against Tennessee)……I’m out…..GO BLUE!
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David: Very interesting points. In particular, scheduling non-conference games of note. This has been a longstanding talking point with the Florida Gators schedule. While they will point to their annual game with Florida State, visiting Tallahassee every other year, the reality is that they do not leave the state of Florida to go out-of-conference. To their credit, Tennessee does this with regularity. In recent years they’ve played at UCLA, Miami, Notre Dame and Syracuse with future schedules over the next nine years including trips to Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, UCLA, North Carolina and North Carolina State. It’s not as easy as having Eastern Michigan or Akron come to town but it’s a far better statement a program can make about themselves.
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My first visit!
Final verdict about Fulmer reserved until after the SECCG. This was/is his watershed year. If he does well, he stays. If he doesn’t, the pressure would be too great to stay (ala Houston Nutt). Style points not included, it seems he has been, “resilient” (as he has stated about his team), and will remain. Stay tuned.
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