SEC This Week

College Gameday will be in Knoxville when Florida visits Tennessee on Jan. 31. Here’s the list of all the places Gameday visits in 2009 from Awful Announcing. 

Randy Moore of InsideTennessee.com shared his idiotic opinion on the best coaches in America in this column. Moore trashed Les Miles of LSU, Nick Saban of Alabama and Urban Meyer of Florida from the SEC and Pete Carroll of the Pac-10.

I guess when your team has Phillip Fulmer as head buffoon coach, then you have to attack everyone else to cover the disaster looming in Knoxville.

Just for the record, Fulmer still has one of the best records amongst active SEC coaches, but who believes he is one of the best?

Here’s the list of active SEC coaches overall records, and SEC records.

With a contract extension, Phil Fulmer is feeling the heat.

With salaries like these, who needs incentives?

The latest coach to find himself in the right league at the right time is Phillip Fulmer. Tennessee just rewarded him for not winning the SEC championship for the ninth straight season.

After running his career record to 0-3 against Urban Meyer and 1-3 against Nick Saban, Fulmer received an immediate $350,000 raise to up his package to $2.4 million a year.

After extending his losing streak in the SEC Championship Game to three, Fulmer got a new seven-year deal that will pay him an average of $2.99 million a year.

UT pays too much for eight wins

But let’s be clear on something else: Nobody in coaching is entitled to a lifetime contract. It’s a current-events business. You have to produce and keep producing.

CoachesHotSeat.com predicts 6-6 record for UT in 2008

We are predicting a 6-6 record for Fulmer and Tennessee in 2008.  Last season Fulmer was one lost fumble against South Carolina to losing his job, and in 2008 we see the pressure building for a change at Tennessee as Fulmer and the Vols struggle to get to even a .500 record.  Can a coach possibly win 76% of the games and lose his job?  Yes he can, and Phil Fulmer knows that can happen, because he has been at Tennessee in some capacity for over 40 years and he knows what the Tennessee fans expect out of their football program.  Fulmer has two big things working against him, with the first being the perception, rather the reality from our view, that his football program is out of control.  Fulmer’s second problem is how long he has been at Tennessee, where he is now heading into his 17th season as a head coach, which is about 7 years past the 10 year limit that the Raiders’ Al Davis said is the amount of time a head football coach should stay at once place.  We get a lot of e-mail from fans here at Coaches Hot Seat, but in the past year only one coach, Houston Nutt at Arkansas, garnered more e-mail to be sent to us about the status of their head coach.  The coach behind Nutt that generated the most e-mail was Phil Fulmer, and 99% of it was against him and calling for a change in the head coach at Tennessee.  From where we sit, if Phil Fulmer does indeed end the 2008 season with a 6-6 record, he will be fired.

Dodd ranks Fulmer as safe
CBS Sportsline columnist Dennis Dodd released his list of coaches on the hotseat. Dodd said ranked Fulmer a 2, which means “Safe — solid position.”

According to Dodd the coaches facing the biggest threat in 2008 are Washington’s Tyrone Willingham who has compiled a11-25 record in three seasons, and Syracuse’s Greg Robinson who has compiled a 7-28 record in three seasons.

What UT fans are saying
From Volnation.com’s message board, an informal poll shows over 70% of Vol fans thought Fulmer’s raise was too much. Here are some comments from the discussion:

TennesseeT: I don’t think it really matters. If the team “struggles to compete” over the next few years as many of you seem to think then PF will retire.

I just hope more of you jump on the Fire Fulmer Wagon and maybe start boycotting games so I can get some decent tickets for less than $100 a pop.

General Jack: Wow, so much for merit based pay. How in the heck can they justify paying Fulmer $3 million when his market value probably isn’t half that? Its not like we are having to beat off would-be suitors for his services.

I would propose keeping his salary the same, offer huge bonuses for winning the SEC, NC and making BCS bowls.

A $5M buyout? That is pretty insulting too, results will not improve with that type of insulation.

I’m not even a Fulmer hater, but this is a very very bad contract. Who would approve this type of deal, it makes absolutely NO business sense at all.

TennFanatic: The only reason Fulmer is still coach at UT is because of the National Title a whopping ten years ago. Its like since he won a national title he can lose as many games as possible and not win the SEC in a decade. Many Tennessee fans and alumnus are satisfied with being very average and want to keep Fulmer the coach at all costs. I just cant see whats so great about the guy, in all honesty he should have been fired a couple of years ago.