Joe Rexrode|The Tennessean
College football fans are the best and the worst — these people create the most powerful sporting scenes and environments in the country, while keeping 300-plus football-free days each year alive with their arguments.
They also, for example, tweet nasty things about Urban Meyer at recruits after Aaron Hernandez is charged with murder — because, you know, Hernandez played for Meyer at Florida, which makes Meyer partially responsible, and means that maybe your school can swipe some of those five-star studs who were thinking hard about Ohio State. It’s only right, right?
In all cases, it’s passion, and in the case of Tennessee fans it’s passion unrewarded for too long. Phillip Fulmer knows this, and on Thursday in downtown Nashville he did again what he has done so many times in seven months as athletic director. He made folks in orange feel better about things with his words. He has delivered in this easy phase of the job, which is ending soon.
Fulmer told a couple hundred people at the Wildhorse Saloon that he’s “even more sure” Jeremy Pruitt was the right choice as football coach. He told of the improvement he saw during spring ball, revealing of the grisly “before” picture: “When we started spring practice, we were awful. Not bad, awful. It was hard to watch.”
Can Phillip Fulmer fix Tennessee Vols fractures?
In an event put on by the Nashville Sports Council — UT allows Fulmer to continue doing independent appearances — he told of preparing for this job by talking with one of the few remaining Power 5 athletic directors with a background in football coaching rather than marketing, Wisconsin’s Barry Alvarez.
Of course, Fulmer said, that conversation took place back when Fulmer thought he was getting this job the first time. You know, back when John Currie was hired instead. The room ate that one up.
If Tennessee football ends up as good as Fulmer is at delivering a message, this will be a redemptive tenure, for him and his alma mater. He’ll certainly raise money. He’s as good a bet as anyone to unify a place that clearly hasn’t been unified in years, though that doesn’t mean he’s a safe bet.
There are new, permanent players to be named later above Fulmer, at chancellor and president. And hope that, whenever lame-duck President Joe DiPietro leaves, he doesn’t savage everyone else the way he did former Chancellor Beverly Davenport with a scathing letter when he fired her in May. Can Tennessee try six months without something bizarre?
And can Fulmer actually bring different factions together, or is this just his turn on the seesaw? The Haslam family is the easy scapegoat for all that has gone wrong over 10 years, but the Haslam family remains important to UT and will be so 10 years from now and beyond. I asked Fulmer before he went on stage if he has actively tried to bring the power people together.
“I think we’re all in a good place right now,” he said. “And when I say all, I mean all. We’re headed down the same street right now, very together.”
Tennessee Vols glory days were stable days
If there’s harmony on that side of things, or at least some level of containment, Tennessee has a chance. And certainly, Fulmer knows what this is supposed to look like. People think of Fulmer and Peyton Manning and Tee Martin and Al Wilson when they think of the glory days of Tennessee, but that also was the time of legendary athletic director Doug Dickey. President Joseph E. Johnson. The great Pat Summitt. Co-workers, working well together.
“They trusted us, and we trusted them,” Fulmer said of his fellow coaches and their bosses. “Over a period of time, we lost some of that.”
A little bit of slippage on Saturdays and some instability can unravel things in this world. Now it’s wait-and-see, again, on UT’s permanent leaders. And even though Pruitt should get the time he needs to win, he won’t do a ton of it in this first year.
There will be some ugly results and resulting ugliness this fall. College football passion is unrivaled, as is college football overreaction. Hey, fans have got to save it all for 12 games. And even if 90 percent of a massive fan base is patient and understanding for a first-year coach, the rest will make enough noise to create discomfort. To test booster composure and newfound relationships. Fulmer likes the one he has right now with Pruitt.
“The relationship will grow into whatever it will grow into. But right now we’re in a super place,” Fulmer said. “We communicate well. We trust each other. We don’t have to walk on eggshells at all. It’s his program, it’s 100 percent his program, I used to be the coach and I’m not the coach anymore. But if he needs something from me, or if I see something, either way, it’s there.”
So is the loyalty of customers who are rightfully sick of losing and realistically in for a bit more of it. So is the pressure on a Fulmer-led department he said is improving in the areas of communication and trust. He’s a rookie AD and few of them come from the coaching ranks anymore, but as Alvarez told him, that background can be an advantage.
“It’s still putting a team together,” Fulmer said. “I think I know how to do that.”
Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.
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