Moving Forward, Hopefully

As the shock of the recent events on the Hill have worn off, Vol fans are scratching their heads at the fact that no one wants to coach in Knoxville. Will Muschamp and Troy Calhoun have turned us down and they are the only names that have been released to the public. It appears that Mike Hamilton will be forced to settle and hire former Vols offensive coordinator and current Duke head coach David Cutcliffe. Sorry Mike but you are immediately on the chopping block if and when this happens. You waited too long to make a change with Fulmer and you took a huge risk by hiring the California Kid. Granted, if the Kid was still here today your job would be safe as long as the mercenary staff did not get our University on probation with the NCAA. However, the chips fell where they did, Carroll went to the Seahawks and the Cali Kid bailed on the Vols and took his staff and likely the recruits with him. That hire is on your shoulders Hamilton and the fact that he bolted after one year is on you.

Although Cutcliffe is a great guy and good coach, we just fired Phil Fulmer because he had lost the fire and ability to keep our program at the top of the college football landscape. Cutcliffe is a Phil Fulmer clone. He is old fashioned, overly loyal to his staff and a couple generations removed from the current college athlete. He was fired at Ole Miss and has won 9 games in the last 2 seasons at Duke. Granted, Duke is a tough place to win but the ACC is not the SEC and the schedule at Tennessee is much harder than Duke's. Why in the world do we fire Fulmer to hire Cutcliffe one year later? It just does not make good sense.

I know that Hamilton is in a tough spot since the Cali Kid left us high and dry but that is why he is paid the big bucks and Hamilton knew that the Kid would head back to California the first chance he got. It is time for Hamilton to earn that paycheck and get a coach that will continue to bring the Vols back to national prominence I, for one, do not think that David Cutcliffe is that coach.

Coming soon: Top 5 reasons why coaches don't want to come to Tennessee.