Interesting situation in Knoxville

Yeah, Fulmer is Fulmer. Yeah, he turned it into a recruiting speech. Yeah, he sucks as a coach. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But here's the thing that interests me as I continue to wonder whether the industry of John Adams (a friend) and me and the rest of us is dying, not just bleeding: Every LSU fan I've spoken with, folks who despise Fulmer and criticize him far worse than anyone here does, applauded him for writing the column and essentially said, "He's right. You guys don't know half as much as you think you know." The message boards so far are unanimous too.

I can guess the reactions here to this post, and they'd all be fair and probably true, but that made an impression.

 

Don't you have him confused with Bobby Bowden?

Oh wait, that's shoplifting and embezzling...

 

Is anyone even the least bit disturbed that the web address to a paper's site would be "govols"?

 

well, considering one of the local news stations calls itself "Volunteer TV" (and no, it's not because Tennessee is the Volunteer State), this is par for the course. it's a business decision to appeal to as many of the orange-colored sheep as they can.

 

Adams stretched a couple different times.
One being that the school should be guilty for what Leonard Little did after college.
So USC should be painted with a broad brush because of OJ?
And I don't think that UT is viewed as the new poster boy for bad behavior.
Lots of schools, SEC schools, have problems. Ole Miss players took everything that wasn't nailed down in their hotel rooms. Arkansas's Darren McFadden, and perhaps its best-ever player, was arrested a couple months back in a bar incident. He almost missed last season because of a bar fight.
I understand that Fulmer's a big target, but maybe its because he's been around the longest or maybe Johnny still holds a grudge after Fulmer's wife went after him in the press box for calling Phil fat in an earlier column.
I don't know, but Fulmer made some points

 

^^^ That was great!
---
I listened to the sports call-in shows in the Tri-Cities area and Knoxville today while driving to cover a prep tournament game and the calls were stunning to me. Adams lit a fire under the fanbase. There were people who have called in saying they wanted Fulmer canned all year long calling in to support him on this issue. I read Adams' column the other day and thought he was right on on some things. I've been saying for a long time that there needed to be a change in the football program in Knoxville. But I also thought John took some things a little too far. My only question was the timing of this. In what should have been a day celebrating Saturday's Tennessee-Memphis game, there were hardly no calls on that game -- only calls about Fulmer-Adams which is sad.

There are thousands of posts on the Tennessee mesage boards. The KNS website has been lit up like the fourth of July with comments -- most coming from readers taking some unfair personal shots at John. If Tennessee wins the SEC this year, Adams can take credit in igniting the initial flame.

 

JF:
Just to clear up your reporting. The comments by Fulmer's wife directed to Gary Lundy and not Adams. She was upset about a column that Gary wrote about Casey Clausen's comments about Georgia. Clausen said he could have beaten Georgia with one arm tied behind his back (he was injured and did not play). On a teleconference, Clausen denied making the statement even though another staff member heard it. Gary called the act spineless. Some of our not savvy readers to this day still claim Gary called him spineless.

I have been off most of the week in was not in the office for John's column or Fulmer's guest piece. On Friday, just to keep it going the AD sent a letter to ticket holders defending Fulmer. I guess he forgot about the basketball game Saturday.
As of today, Adams' column had 1,242 comments.

Phil Kaplan

 

I don't think it's a straw man at all. Fulmer didn't make an offer, as I read it. Written Off is the one who made it sound like an offer. All Fulmer's saying, in my opinion, is Adams has never been in his shoes, never had to face the parents and make certain promises.

 

I would agree with you if it didn't say:

If he had said, "Mr. Adams has never been in a prospect's living room," that would be one thing. When he says Adams has never sat next to him in the living room, it's another.
He knows media members can't go with him on recruiting trips. That's why he wrote that.
BTW, if a player and player's family allows it, would it be allowed to sit in on coaches' recuiting visits? Just curious. Could make for an amazing story if it was allowed.

 

Yes, if I am reading this correctly, the Knoxville News Sentinel also runs govolsxtra.com, the UT fanboi site. Nice.

How many other papers do that?

 

It was pretty sloppy of me to miss "has never sat next to me." Sorry about that. Pretty basic mistake on my part.

Still, I think you're inferring an offer, but I don't know that an offer was implied. Maybe it was.

 

No problem.

I don't think it was intentionally implied, but I don't think it's fair for him to make that statement when (presumably) he hasn't offered Adams to come along on recruiting trips. I think there are several journalists who would LOVE to see what happens in those visits. More than anything it was a misleading way for Fulmer to get the fans to rally behind him. He needs it though, so good for him in a way.