It sounds like things are already rolling in Knoxville.
Arizona State’s athletic director was highly complimentary of the new football regime.
“The athletic department there is perceived there as a cluster,” Anderson told Dodd. “Their athletic director, now Phil Fulmer, in the athletic director’s world is a pariah. It is not a good situation.”
Anderson is the guy who just made the bizarre decision to hire Herm Edwards as his new head coach, so when he talks about clusters, he knows a little something from where he speaks.
Jeremy Pruitt’s only been on the job for about a week, but it sounds like he’s looking for some of that sweet pariah action, too.
Tampa Bay Tech coach Jayson Roberts has a difficult time believing Phillip Fulmer could have been involved in the process of pulling a scholarship offer from his quarterback, Michael Penix.
Roberts has never met Fulmer, but he knows the Tennessee athletic director had a sterling reputation during his Hall of Fame coaching career with the Volunteers. His impression from afar is that Fulmer is a man of integrity who did the right things in recruiting.
“I know that as an athletic director he has a lot to oversee,” Roberts said Thursday. “I can’t imagine he had a hand in how Tennessee’s new staff dealt with this.”
Fulmer is indeed a beloved figure in the Volunteer State, and a man the Tennessee fan base has rallied around since he took over as athletic director on Dec. 1. Thus, Roberts and others remain stunned at the awkward and uncharacteristic nature with which the new Tennessee staff cut ties to Penix, a well-respected 3-star recruit.
Penix, who had been committed to the Vols since April, stuck with Tennessee through Butch Jones’ Nov. 12 firing, a 26-day coaching search and the hiring of new coach Jeremy Pruitt.
It’s Pruitt’s first time as a college head coach, and calling the 11 players who were committed to Tennessee at the time was almost certainly one of the first things on his to-do list. Sure enough, Pruitt called Penix last week to tell the quarterback he was honoring his commitment.
That changed Wednesday, when Penix received a text asking him to call the UT football office. Penix said that when he made the call, new offensive coordinator Ty Helton told him not to come on the official visit to Knoxville that had been planned months earlier.
Apparently, the Vols had another pro-style quarterback they were bringing in to visit.
That’s nice. Apparently, somebody in Knoxville has decided the time for mockery is past. They’re going straight for active dislike. Just like the good ole days!
Get The Picture 
If Tennessee was a stock, I couldn’t short enough of it.
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Funny – I previously made the analogy that UT was like a once proud company back in the 80’s/90’s that still thinks its great, but in reality is holding on for dear life. They basically are like Sears or Yahoo, where every day the leadership tells itself how great they are and that any day things will turn around.
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Kodak
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Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. You’re black.
Also, unfortunate name.
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If Tennessee was a politician, it would be Nancy Pelosi.
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Seriously… WIth there being a more prominent oompah loompah colored politician out there I thought you’d go another direction with this.
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Derek, I teed it up for you, my man. Now, hit it out of the park.
On a serious note. I agree the man in the WH is an ass and buffoon. He’s many things, many of which are bad. He’s the Repub version of Bill Clinton. Shady, slimy, corrupt and possibly criminal. He’s also doing what Clinton did and that is to say he’s staying out of the way. Both oversee a market expansion that is historic. Both are beloved by their base. Neither is as moral as Jimmy Carter nor as likely to fuck things up as Carter did. Hate him if you must, but tip your hat to him for doing what you never thought he could do and that’s getting elected.
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Meanwhile… at the State Department…
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Fine. Sessions is as moral as Carter and as likely to fuck things up.
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Look up Smiling Jimmy’s stance on segregation when he was running for governor. Dem’s hate when people research that.
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They have a name for old southern racist democrats: republicans.
Everybody wants to paint one party or the other with past racism. The truth is that both parties are guilty. It was the liberals of both parties who made things better and the conservatives of both parties that fought it tooth and nail. If you want to blame a political view point it isn’t democrat or republican which have both houses their share of racists, it’s those who call themselves conservatives who resisted advancement on the issue of race and pretty much every other issue.
They do agree that the rich should be considerably richer.
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Big Jimmy wasn’t a racist. He just pretended to be one to win an election.
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If only Il Douche we’re pretending. I’d feel better.
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Clinton was smart and competent. You could ask him about the most technical nuanced thing and he knew what was going on with it. He answered questions on government like Saban answers football question: in paragraph form.
I’ve hated this buffoon he came on the scene. He’s been a failure at everything save self promotion, manipulation of the masses and apparently golf. I do also give him credit for having a terrible diet and not looking like a blimp. I’m jealous of the golf and the cheeseburgers since I can’t break 90 and I gain 10 pounds for every trip through a drive thru.
I’ll give you this: he hasn’t invaded Iraq and that was consequential and fucktarded.
We’ll see how long our luck lasts. I actually agree, and have said here, that the North Korean regime has to go. I just don’t think this guy can get it done while minimizing the costs in blood and treasure.
If it goes down it will be a cluster of epic proportions and may spin out of control.
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I’d say my stock portfolio rate of return of 20 percent last year wasn’t a failure.
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Thanks obama!
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Obama campaigned against the fat cats on wall street. Now dems claim stock market records as measures of success?
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Clinton and obama’s Presidencies were far better for the markets than W’s that’s for certain.
As far as “fat cats” I know this is nuanced so you’ll find it unattainable but you can be for free markets and not think that the 1% should be their sole beneficiary.
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And the Sun may not come up in the morning…..That’s just as relevant as what you had to say Derek
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Tim,
New Years resolution: in 2018 try and formulate an actual argument.
An insult is not an argument and makes you appear incapable of formulating a thought with words. Combine literacy, reasoning and facts and put them in an rational order.
Give it a shot.
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Literacy?….Like when you spew the F bombs?
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If you’re fucking stupid that thought may be part of what is “spewed” but it’s never the only thing that is “spewed.”
For whatever reason you just can’t get past “fucking stupid.”
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I know that there is a lot of Pruitt love by some of our fans, but this is not going to end well for him or UToothless.
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If you want to see if there’s a correlation between shitting on the dreams of high school kids and winning titles, look at Tuscaloosa. Nobody mistreated more kids than Satan. Didn’t matter.
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Spurrier did it, too.
The difference is neither did it in their first week on the job.
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It’s distinction perhaps. Not sure it’s a difference.
I had wished that alabama’s ability to recruit would be harmed by the stories of the kids that got processed. Instead it led to 85 man roster with no back ups or scout teamers. If they’re there it’s because another guy is just better. Talented 18 year old kids refuse to believe that they’ll be the kid without a LOI on signing day or who will be handed a medical redshirt before their RS junior year to open room for a HS kid.
There are benefits to doing the wrong thing and costs to doing the right thing. It’s the way of the world and we have to make our choices. I’d rather pay the costs myself.
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A coach with conference titles and national championships to his name has a lot more latitude with this kind of stuff than somebody making his way as a first time head coach after a few days.
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We’ll see. Generally speaking the guys know which is the better player. If you cut the worse player loose and sign the better one, first your team is better and second no one cares. Find a Bama fan or player who gives a rat’s ass about Darius philon.
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Just imagine should Kirby fall on bad times and the same thing happening at UGA with Mark Richt. Perish the thought.
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Please, don’t ever speak of such evil again.
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I hate the recruiting process, and either side not honoring their word. But when a major change like this occurs there will be yinging and yanging all over the landscape. The only thing that makes this one more palatable is it is about 6 weeks before NSD. It is the ones that leave a recruit stranded with no time to find a place to land, or replace a recruit that flips, that bother me the most. If this guy is good enough to get an offer from TN, he will find a good, probably better, home in CFB.
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But as most in the college football media have been reporting, the early signing date is now the true NSD (days?). The Feb date is going to be like the Spring basketball signing date where teams fill out their classes. The # of opportunities for this recruit will be severely diminished after Dec 22.
Since this is the first year of the early signing period and the coaching carousel has been crazy, I am surprised we have not heard more about this type of situation. Moving forward, I can see where hs kids will more decommit as soon as change is made in order to see if there are other opportunities before the December signing date.
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Not necessarily. We don’t really know how the early signing period will play out. It’s possible that a 3 star kid like this will end up in a slightly better situation if some programs whiff on higher rated recruits.
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Is CJP looking towards Athens for a pro style QB? Could Eason end up in orange attire?
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No. Pruitt won’t let him transfer to there. I’ve been saying for the last few months that Eason will end up at Udub. We’ll see soon if I’m right or wrong.
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I obviously meat Smart, not Pruitt.
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I make that mistake all the time. There are so many similarities in their careers…Both at UGA, disciples of Saint Nick, new head coaching gigs close by, etc. Easy to do. Lets hope the similarities end soon.
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I agree … he’s headed to either Seattle to play for Peterson or the Paloose to play for the Pirate.
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If I were Eason, I’d spend a few days talking to the OU staff about Mayfield’s imminent departure and how I might fit in.
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They have benefited from ex-UGA QBs before…
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If Anderson, who I perceive to be the biggest joke in the AD world (just hired Herm Edwards, remember?), is calling you out — YIKES!
Not that I don’t enjoy it, mind you. If the fire at UT was burning at 3000 degrees, I’d be upset it wasn’t 4000.
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I continue to be fascinated by UT, and these latest stories only serve to greater pique my interest. I’ll say it for the final time and then get off my high horse – Pruitt will not succeed at UT, and he and Fulmer will get along about as well as Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones did during the final years together.
The fact that UT would allow a former coach, whom they unceremoniously dumped 10 years ago and has remained bitter since, to come back in and oversee the football program and its type A+ personality coach who is both a rookie and an outsider, is sheer lunacy.
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It’s also awesome.
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Yes, Stoopnagle. There is a Santa Claus.
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…and a Great Pumpkin.
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Need. More. Popcorn.
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Speaking of recruiting qb’s, Matt Corral decommitted from UF and will sign with Ole Miss. I’m really starting to think we miss out on #1. Mullens doesn’t lose his guy to Ole Miss without some tomfoolery, high jinks or shenanigans.
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I’ll be very surprised if Fields ends up at UF unless he decides he doesn’t want to sit behind Fromm. You don’t make a big announcement like he did at Harrison in front of the entire student body if you weren’t convinced.
Corral isn’t the type of QB that can run Mullen’s system. He’s a pro-style passer recruited to the Shark Humper’s scheme rather than a Tebow, Prescott, or Fitzgerald type of player.
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Not to mention all the recruits Fields contacted to come join him at UGA after that announcement. He may be sitting back laughing that anyone thinks he would walk away from his 2nd “commitment”, but his silence is troubling to me. If he doesn’t sign next week, Kirby may be walking the aisles of the QB supermarket.
If Fields wanted to play in Mullen’s offense, why didn’t he commit to MSU? It isn’t like FU is in great shape talent wise, they will take 3+ years to rebuild that mess.
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If there were any doubt, I don’t think Justin’s Twitter feed would look like this. Smart, Chaney & McGee were in Marietta last night.
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Would not be a surprise to me given the lack of a string denial from Fields at this point. Don’t think Corral was comfortable with the Mullen offense, and Mullen likely feels the same. I am just surprised he picked Ole Miss, he has many better choices. (Believe we pushed back from Corral because of our confidence in getting Fields in the first place.)
Now we may be going from “our cup runneth over” to looking hard for a quality QB to back Fromm up. If Eason has to sit a year anyway, he perhaps could stay at UGA, graduate in 3 years,and then go straight to his choice of schools for his last year of play. Strange how the world turns.
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No way. This came down to Corral not being the guy to run Mullen’s O, and they both know it. Mullen also gave Corral the cold shoulder until recently, which didn’t sit well with him either. Mullen now is pursing some other targets not named Fields, though I’m sure he’ll continue to lob hail mary’s his way.
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Agree. Mullen will look for a bruising, physical runner in the Tebow / Prescott / Fitzgerald mold.
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Some of you guys love to worry. I mean you fucking love it.
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LOL!!
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Munsonitis…a lot of us contracted it in the 80’s. There’s no cure.
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I always thought tnrc looked down on UGA for years under Fulmer. I remember the drubbings UGA took from the Vols when Manning was there. This year we beat the crap out of the Vols and look forward to many more beatings of tnrc from here on. Here is hoping tnrc loses every conference game next year just like this year.
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He nixed Penix?
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