Pale orange ballcap? Check. Pale orange or white short-sleeved knit shirt, remarkably similar to the ones University of Tennessee football coaches wear? Check. Pale orange windbreaker, also quite similar to those often worn by UT’s coaches? Check.
Closely study UT athletic director Phillip Fulmer’s game-day attire the past few weeks and he has begun to far more closely resemble the Big Orange head football coach he used to be rather than the job title he now holds.
And that image is causing quite a stir in media circles, where everyone from national sports columnist Pete Thamel to the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s gifted Mark Bradley to award-winning Knoxville News-Sentinel columnist John Adams has begun to wonder if Fulmer might fire current Volunteers coach Jeremy Pruitt before the end of October and return himself to the position he held for 16 seasons.
On resume alone it somewhat makes sense. Fulmer won 152 games and the 1998 national championship during his lengthy career. The Vols’ record over the 10-plus seasons since he was forced out at the close of the 2008 season is an overwhelmingly underwhelming 63-66. So theoretically, the 69-year-old Fulmer might – emphasis on “might” – be an improvement.
AP photo by Wade Payne / Tennessee athletic director Phillip Fulmer stands on the sideline during the first half of the Vols’ 2019 football season opener against Georgia State.After all, Alabama coach Nick Saban will turn 68 on Halloween. Just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean you can’t get better.