Ray Glier

Aside from the colors of the pom poms, I thought you weren’t supposed to be able to tell the difference between Tennessee football fans and Kentucky basketball fans.

A lost game, a lost recruit and the UK/UT crazies were supposed to be handcuffed together going over the falls in misery. Crazy is as crazy does, two peas in a pod, and so forth.

Vol fans, however, look downright rational these days. Kentucky fans pushed out a coach who won five SEC tournament titles. Tennessee fans seem to be holding tight to a coach who hasn’t won a league title in eight years.

Phil Fulmer won his national title the same season as Tubby Smith won his national title. Smith felt the need to leave; Fulmer is still working with a Get Out of Jail Free card.

I can’t explain it.

Mellow Orange? Sounds like a drink. Can’t be a Vol fan.

The web site www.firetubbysmith no longer opens on command. It has not been replaced by www.firephilfulmer.

It could be that Fulmer, who grew up in Winchester, Tenn., and played for the Vols, gets a longer rope for being home-grown and for being a good guy and a leader. Fulmer put his foot down on the players who were being hauled off to jail in 2005-06 and got rid of some of them.

And, if you look at it, the Vols have been miserable just one season in this eight-year stretch (5-6 in 2005). They found a scapegoat, offensive coordinator Randy Sanders, who was replaced by his predecessor David Cutcliffe before the 2006 season, and there was a soothing of the bruised fandom.

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Look at it some more. Fulmer, the longest tenured coach in the SEC, still has the highest winning percentage of any active coach with 10 seasons or more. The Vols have led the SEC in Fall Academic Honor Roll participants the last two years. Fulmer had a street named after him — Phillip Fulmer Way — and he takes his teams to bowl games.

He gives money to the school; he is regarded as a respectful guy around athletic department offices, not a demigod like other SEC coaches.

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Tennessee’s recruiting class in 2007 was rated just behind Florida. It is loaded with talent. Momentum is building back for Fulmer.

And . . . well, that’s the end of the good will in this space.

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Fulmer needs to start winning big again.

UT has not become a basketball school with Bruce Pearl, though the most exciting coach in America is trying his best. It is still a football school that draws 108,000 fans per game and uses football to drive a multi-million dollar athletic department.

Fulmer doesn’t need to see the “Win or Else” memo. He signed up for this and chugs right along with the expectations. His salary has climbed from $350,000 in 1993 when he got the job to $2.05 million in 2007, but the burden of expectations have always out-paced the pay.

He knows what has to happen and I think it needs to happen soon. Georgia is a better program now. So is Florida. LSU and Auburn have motored past the Vols and Alabama will be coming up fast in the rear view mirror.

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