The Carousel of Misery continues to go ‘round for the University of Tennessee football program.  On Monday, the Vols fired Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt and eight additional staff members for cause, citing major recruiting violations.

How can you mess this up, Tennessee? Let me count the ways.

 On November 26, 2017, I gave a sigh of resignation and apathy as I saw the news that then Tennessee Athletic Director John Currie was closing in on a deal to make Greg Schiano the next head football coach. I couldn’t have been less enthused. At the time, it felt like the most mediocre hire that Tennessee could possibly make. I rolled my eyes and begrudgingly got on the internet to see if I could find some hot takes to convince me that it was a decent hire.

Instead, something bizarre – even by Tennessee standards – happened.

A Twitter firestorm, the likes of which College Football had never seen, came down against the Tennessee Athletic Department. Fans, media, rich donors, and even local politicians got involved; some with good, sound reasons, some with irrelevant reasons that bordered on insanity. Regardless, John Currie pulled the job offer off the table and was subsequently fired later that week. To calm the rabid fanbase, the university hired former legendary coach Phillip Fulmer to take over as Athletic Director. Despite having no AD experience and for all accounts and purposes was wholly unqualified, Fulmer’s presence brought the temperature of the fans down enough for him to make a move. Fulmer then immediately hired Jeremy Pruitt who also had no major college head coaching experience and was for all accounts and purposes, wholly unqualified.

So let’s’ look at where we are three years later:

  • Finished this season 3-7
  • An overall record of 16-19 (under .500)
  • 0-9 against the Big Three Rivals (Florida, Georgia, Alabama – 8 of the 9 losses came by more than 20 points)
  • Owns the worst loss in program history (Georgia State – a 26 point underdog)
  • Owns the first home loss to Kentucky since 1984
  • Egregiously botched the Quarterback situation for his entire tenure
  • Allowed an unknown number of recruiting violations to occur which will likely result in NCAA sanctions
  • Pruitt fired
  • Fulmer “retired” (mutually agreed to step away, however you want to take that)

Some fans are proud of “Schiano Sunday”. Some fans are embarrassed by it. For my part, I’m somewhere in the middle. Any way you slice it, this was not a Net Gain for Tennessee football in any sense.

But this is the way that the Vols do things. They take something that should be relatively simple, and make it mind-bogglingly complicated.

I could write pages of complaints and laments about all the ways the University of Tennessee has messed things up over the last 15 years, but I’m generally an optimistic person. I’ll try to focus on the positives. So here’s a take that may be an unpopular opinion but I believe it’s true:

The Phillip Fulmer era is over in Tennessee – this time for real – and that is the best thing that could happen to this program right now. Fulmer is beloved and respected in Tennessee. He coached the Vols to the height of their modern day success and won the first ever BCS Title in an undefeated 1998 season. But the Fulmer era played out like a great TV show that went one or two seasons too long like, say, Scrubs. Scrubs is a great show, sometimes even all-time great (like Fulmer’s coaching career) and culminated in an emotional sendoff in Season 8 (like Fulmer getting fired in 2008). Bizarrely, Scrubs comes back for a random Season 9 with a cast and plot that is completely different (like Fulmer returning as Athletic Director despite having no experience or qualifications), and even thought it felt nice and had some decent moments, it was ultimately cancelled because everyone realized that Scrubs had run its course and it was time to move on.

The point here is that Tennessee and Phillip Fulmer wanted to recapture the old magic with the same old formula because, hey, it worked before, right? Except it’s not 1995 anymore. The show has run its course. The cast is different, the plot has changed, and if you keep trying to force it, it’s just gonna get worse. It’s time to move on.

And now Fulmer has moved on for good. His coaching staff is being picked apart, and the players that they recruited are leaving in droves. We’re seeing a cleansing of all things Fulmer, a true changing of the guard. This was necessary. Painful? Sure. But necessary. The University should always be grateful for the success that Fulmer brought Tennessee and for his genuine love for the program, but now it’s time to show that gratitude by living in the present and looking toward the future instead of dwelling on the past.

Today, the Vols new leadership made a great new hire at Athletic Director in Danny White. This is a signal that the Vols are serious about moving in a truly new direction, but it’s only a first step. From here, it will be up to the higher-ups at Tennessee (the donors and power players) to decide if they are ready to take the necessary steps to bring in the people who will get the Vols competing with Alabama and Florida again, or if they will continue to live in the past and be their own worst enemy.