When my daughter Julia Caroline rose from her slumber Sunday morning to prepare for church, she asked her sports writer father an interesting question.
"I saw Coach (Phillip) Fulmer on television last night," she said. "Why doesn't he coach anymore? Wasn't he a really good coach?"
He was, of course, a national championship-winning football coach for the University of Tennessee in the 1998 season. Yet with the Volunteers on their way to a second five-win season in four years, Fulmer was let go in early November 2008, the administration at that time convinced that not only were its championship coach's best days behind him, but the school could find someone better.
Come Saturday afternoon at 4, a Tennessee team that stands 4-7 overall and 0-7 in the Southeastern Conference will host a Vanderbilt team that sports the same record. Never in the history of one of the Southeastern Conference's oldest rivalries have Tennessee and Vandy both entered with more conference defeats.
That this Charlie Brown Bowl is even on television (SEC Network) is amazing. If enough people watch it to register on any ratings scale, we might should all take it as a sign the apocalypse is upon us - especially because the Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn will be airing at basically the same time (3:30 on CBS).
But to return to my daughter's question, to look at the program since Fulmer was forced out is to see pretty clearly that whatever you think of the former coach, nothing has gotten anything but worse in his absence.
Consider, for instance, that in Fulmer's final five seasons - easily the worst five-year stretch of his 16 years atop Rocky Top - the Vols went 39-24, won two SEC East titles, posted two 10-win seasons and lost a total of nine games by 14 or more points.
Now let's check out Tennessee's 2012 to 2016 seasons, a period that produced a 35-28 record, no 10-win seasons, no SEC East titles and 12 losses by 14 or more points.
Fulmer, even in his worst five-year run, doesn't look so bad now, does he?
The point is, everyone in Tennessee Orange has been beside themselves wanting a change at the top. So less than five years in, Butch Jones is out, Brady Hoke is the interim coach and first-year athletic director John Currie is already on a very hot seat regarding whom he'll turn to as Jones' replacement to resurrect a program that's gone from 9-4 a year ago to absolutely rock bottom (at least if it loses to Vandy for the fourth time in six years) in a span of 12 months.
It's a shocking spot to be in for one of the SEC's more historically significant football powers. Tennessee is one of five SEC schools - Alabama, Auburn, Florida and LSU are the others - to win a national title since the BCS era began in 1998, and if it can avoid falling to the Commodores this weekend, it will remain one of two schools (along with Ohio State) to never have an eight-loss season.
Both of those are heady facts with which to acquire a new coach, as is Neyland Stadium and its 102,455 seats. It also doesn't hurt that you're coaching in the SEC East rather the more salty West, though having Alabama as your permanent West opponent does hurt for probably as long as Nick Saban remains the Bama boss.
However, the Crimson Tide notwithstanding, hiring this next coach shouldn't be that tough of a deal. But those attributes were also in place when Fulmer was fired in 2008. They were present when former athletic director Mike Hamilton turned to Lane Kiffin for the 2009 season, then Derek Dooley a year later after Kiffin bolted for Southern Cal. They were in place when Dave Hart hired Jones in December 2012.
Yet here the Big Orange Nation is 19 seasons after that '98 national title and nine years after Fulmer's ouster, worse off in almost every way than before Fulmer was shown the door.
Does this mean it was a mistake to part company with Fulmer at that time? Maybe. Maybe not.
Though any reasonable soul might look back and quickly contend he deserved at least one more season, the Vols were trending downward, though that might have been inevitable given Fulmer's first and second five-year records. After all, during his first five seasons on the job (1993-97), they went an astounding 50-11. His second five, though not quite as strong, produced a 49-14 record and the national championship.
Now, depending on what happens against Vanderbilt, the Vols' past five seasons will stand 35-28 or 34-29. Not awful, but not inspiring, either.
There are clearly a lot of seemingly gifted coaches out there who would love to follow Jones, just as there seemed to be many options in 2008.
The trick is to find the right one, and as the past nine seasons have painfully shown, that's far easier said than done.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.