As Tennessee seeks to find an AD and a football coach here’s the latest on a few things we have been working on today.
Let’s start on the AD front, the word fast continues to be the term thrown about. How fast? We feel like Tennessee would like to get their new athletic director finished out sooner rather than later. A couple of sources have suggested that by the weekend is a possibility in terms of hiring a replacement for retiring AD Phillip Fulmer. No matter what, we don’t see this dragging on much past the middle of next week at the latest unless Tennessee fails to land their choice. Chancellor Plowman and The Parker Group have obviously been in regular discussion as Tennessee is paying that firm $120k to assist them in finding an AD. It was suggested to us that a couple of interviews may have already taken place.
The criteria seems to be pretty clear. A sitting AD or one who has been a sitting AD is the preference.
The other item that seems unwavering is that the new AD will hire the new football coach. Thus the speed of the AD search.
The reason for the speed is that the football program needs stability and direction which includes completing the staff. The quote from the Chancellors office on Tuesday gave the impression that Kevin Steele may have the opportunity to fill a couple of positions on the staff in an effort to hold the roster together. Players have many questions about who their position coach is going to be. For example the lack of an offensive line coach continues to hurt Tennessee and with no definite timeline for a coach to be named, players at that position are getting antsy. Those unknowns have them getting pulled in other directions by their families as well as players at other schools trying to recruit them. Steele has met with Chancellor Plowman multiple times since Monday’s firing of Jeremy Pruitt.
As of now no one new is in the transfer portal although several have asked for their paperwork to potentially enter the portal. At least a couple of those who have asked are indicating that they will wait and go through spring practice to see how different things are.
Let’s start on the AD front, the word fast continues to be the term thrown about. How fast? We feel like Tennessee would like to get their new athletic director finished out sooner rather than later. A couple of sources have suggested that by the weekend is a possibility in terms of hiring a replacement for retiring AD Phillip Fulmer. No matter what, we don’t see this dragging on much past the middle of next week at the latest unless Tennessee fails to land their choice. Chancellor Plowman and The Parker Group have obviously been in regular discussion as Tennessee is paying that firm $120k to assist them in finding an AD. It was suggested to us that a couple of interviews may have already taken place.
The criteria seems to be pretty clear. A sitting AD or one who has been a sitting AD is the preference.
The other item that seems unwavering is that the new AD will hire the new football coach. Thus the speed of the AD search.
The reason for the speed is that the football program needs stability and direction which includes completing the staff. The quote from the Chancellors office on Tuesday gave the impression that Kevin Steele may have the opportunity to fill a couple of positions on the staff in an effort to hold the roster together. Players have many questions about who their position coach is going to be. For example the lack of an offensive line coach continues to hurt Tennessee and with no definite timeline for a coach to be named, players at that position are getting antsy. Those unknowns have them getting pulled in other directions by their families as well as players at other schools trying to recruit them. Steele has met with Chancellor Plowman multiple times since Monday’s firing of Jeremy Pruitt.
As of now no one new is in the transfer portal although several have asked for their paperwork to potentially enter the portal. At least a couple of those who have asked are indicating that they will wait and go through spring practice to see how different things are.
