Phil Fulmer has heard the question once, twice, a hundred times in the nine months since he returned to Tennessee as athletics director: When are the Volunteers going to bring home another trophy?
It’s a timely question on several fronts. Tennessee has a new coach, Jeremy Pruitt, just three games into his young tenure. Fulmer returned “to get football fixed,” he said, a decade after his unceremonious departure as the most successful coach in program history this side of Robert Neyland.
And Saturday’s home game against rival Florida will have a special guest in attendance — the Amway Coaches Poll Trophy, awarded each year to the national champion.
Then again, Fulmer’s “been asked that question since January of 1999,” he said, or days after Tennessee’s last title. In the decade since firing Fulmer, the Volunteers have cycled through Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley and then Butch Jones, somehow drifting farther from conference and national contention with each hire.
“They’re hard to get,” Fulmer said of a national title. “You’ve got to be very, very talented, and you’ve also got to be a little bit lucky, in my opinion. So they’re hard to come by.”
But Fulmer has liked what he’s seen so far from Pruitt, who essentially fell into Tennessee’s lap after a turbulent coaching search that cost Fulmer’s predecessor, John Currie, his job; cycled through several big-name coaches, many currently working on the Power Five level; and entered into uncharted waters with the near-hire of Ohio State assistant coach Greg Schiano, which sent the Volunteers’ fan base into full-on rebellion.
“You feel like you got the right guy when you hire somebody, but you really don’t know until you’re with him,” Fulmer said of Pruitt. “Now I’m nine months into it, and I’m more convinced than ever.
“I love our coach. I think he’s a coach’s coach and a player’s coach. He knows the game and he loves the game. He understands because he’s been around some really great places and some really great coaches.”
As expected, Tennessee hasn’t looked the part of an SEC contender through three games. There was a predictable loss to West Virginia in the opener, in a pairing of one team with a clear identity and purpose — that would be the Mountaineers — against a clearly overmatched opponent.
Last week’s 24-0 win against Texas El-Paso left Pruitt unsatisfied: “It’d be hard to beat anybody in the SEC playing like that,” he said.
The process continues with what may be viewed as a must-win game against the Gators, who are undergoing a transition of their own under new hire Dan Mullen. After Saturday, the Volunteers embark on an evil three-game stretch: at Georgia on Sept. 29, at Auburn on Oct. 13 and home for Alabama on Oct. 20. With a loss to Florida, it’s possible, if not very probable, that Tennessee would be 2-5 heading into the final month of the regular season.
Not that some sort of immediate bounce into the league’s top third was expected from Pruitt’s first year. Yet the Volunteers’ return to national prominence “is just a matter of time,” Fulmer said, citing the staff Pruitt hired and the Volunteers’ strong recruiting work.
“That’s our goal. That’s our ultimate goal, to compete for championships,” he said. “These kids here are working really hard to change the culture. We’ll see where we go and how fast we go.”
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