Tennessee football: Coaches responsible for Vols worst draft decade ever

4. Phillip Fulmer

NFL Draft picks signed: 9

Years at Tennessee in 2010s: 0

Yes, Phillip Fulmer’s fingerprints were all over the early periods of former Tennessee football players in the NFL Draft. Every player taken in the 2010 and 2011 drafts were signed by him, after all. He even signed Dallas Thomas, who was selected in the 2013 NFL Draft.

So, to put it bluntly, Fulmer was single-handedly keeping the early part of this decade alive for the Vols in the NFL Draft. But that does not mean he did not have a hand in the program slightly falling off when it came to NFL talent.

Fulmer’s recruiting classes from 2005 to 2008 all had players who could have been NFL prospects, and he had a hand in the 2009 class. Players he coached his final three years were guys who would be future draft picks in the 2010s.

The fact of the matter is too many recruits from his final highly-touted classes did not pan out. His 2005 and 2007 classes were both top 5, and only two players were drafted from each of them. Then, he failed to secure a Top 20 class in 2006, and his final class was outside of the top 30.

Add in the fact that his final year, 2008, was a disastrous 5-7 season, and he clearly failed to deliver NFL talent to Rocky Top the way he did in his previous years. That’s why he remains ahead of Jeremy Pruitt on this list. But he’s still the most successful coach for even this decade at putting guys in the pros, so we have to be fair to him.