Tennessee football: Ranking all head coaches’ final NFL Draft classes
Number of NFL Draft picks: 1
- Round 1: Robert Ayers – Denver Broncos (Pick 18)
No coach in Tennessee football history produced more elite NFL talent than Phillip Fulmer. With help from what Johnny Majors spent years building, Fulmer took the Vols to an insane level in the 1990s and early 2000s that had them easily dominating the NFL. You could have had a Super Bowl team with a former UT player starting at every position in 2004.
With that said, as the program faltered in the mid-2000s, so did his NFL Draft picks. After his firing in 2008, he only saw one player drafted in 2009, defensive end Robert Ayers. That would seem to put him lower on this list, but Ayers being a first-round draft pick gave Fulmer numerous bonus points to put him ahead of Jeremy Pruitt, Butch Jones and John Barnhill.
We should note that, while not relevant to our judgment of draft classes here, this was a year of undrafted free agents having great success. Arian Foster, Ramon Foster and Britton Colquitt all signed with teams as undrafted free agents in 2009, and all had notable pro careers.
It’s also worth pointing out that Ayers himself had a solid career. As a result, Fulmer got an unfair rep for this class, as he clearly developed a lot of talent even in his worst year. Every single player we named was an NFL starter by 2014, and they all either made multiple Pro Bowls or had at least a 10-year starting career.