Honestly, Phat Phil was given a raw deal, if you ask me. He has expressed a desire to get back into coaching recently, and I believe he'd be the best choice for Tennessee. They have certainly dive-bombed without him. Guess you never know what you got 'til it's gone. (Cue cheesy power ballad)
Phil was boring and bad gameday coach. But a good recruiter. I don't think ut was wrong to want better. Theyve just done a horrible job hiring. Reminds me of another place's Administration. Too much politics will ruin the best schools. It's what cost Bama for a decade plus. And gave us the 90s.
All I know is they were better with him than they have been without him. He won 75% of his games over his tenure and had various championships under his belt. He had a bad streak, but I believed he was going to work himself out of it. His speech on ESPN after they forced him out was probably the most heartbreaking thing I've ever witnnessed, and it'd be a nice redemption story.
Some idiotic LSU fans need to glance over at Tennessee and see what happens when you run a good coach out of town.
Nothing wrong with striving for excellence. You just better pick the right guy. Should Bama have stayed with mike Shula. That thinking is a losers mentality. Unless you are ole miss. Then you better settle.
Well said. On Phil and recruiting... I recall a new rule being passed down by the NCAA restricting how schools paid for transportation for recruiting visits. I can't recall exactly what the rule was, but I do recall thinking it was going to hurt UT because it eliminated their use of University planes to transport kids. Along the same time we started seeing UT struggle against top 25 teams. By the end of his tenure, when you looked back over the last seven or eight years, UT had a winning percentage over ranked teams that was a little better than Georgia's is now—but not by much. It was in the .300's.
