Tennessee football: Phillip Fulmer’s comments on Dave Clawson suggest longtime rumors are true

It’s the hire that derailed his career. Phillip Fulmer brought in Dave Clawson as the new Tennessee football offensive coordinator to replace David Cutcliffe in 2008. A horrendous offensive performance ensued, resulting in the Vols’ second losing season in four years and forcing Mike Hamilton to fire Fulmer.

In hindsight, it became harder and harder figure out what went wrong that year given Clawson’s success since as head coach of the Bowling Green Falcons and Wake Forest Demon Deacons along with his success before arriving as head coach of the Richmond Spiders. The only explanation was a clash of styles.

Well, Fulmer seems to have confirmed as much. Speaking on the J-Mart and Ramon show on 104.5 The Zone in Nashville Tuesday, he finally commented on the hiring of Clawson that year. Here’s what the former Tennessee football coach said. The clip starts at 1:39:00.

"“Most of the time we were so much on the same page and everybody working exactly together, and there were some dynamics there that just didn’t work. Even now, I wonder how all those things happened. It was probably everybody, including me, that was responsible for that.”"

The question came as a result of the show’s co-host, former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Ramon Foster, was an offensive lineman on that team, apparently always speaking negative of Clawson. Fulmer jokingly told Foster to let it go on the show, trying his best to avoid diving into it.

What’s clear, though, is there was a clash of styles, and that’s something everybody has said about Clawson and Fulmer for a while. A deep dive into Twitter and the message boards will show just how deep those differences went.

Specifically, those rumors mention apparent disagreements over where to start different players on the offensive line. They also were said to clash over who to start at quarterback between Jonathan Crompton, Nick Stephens and B.J. Coleman.

Given how Fulmer spoke about the situation and how Foster, who had developed in Fulmer’s system, speaks on Foster, it’s safe to say those rumors are probably true at this point. It’s also another piece of evidence as to why Fulmer should have promoted Trooper Taylor that year.

Clawson’s hire was a way for Fulmer to try to inject new blood into Tennessee football. There was fear at the time that the program had become stale under him, even though they had just won the SEC East, and he made this hire to try to ease that notion.

Obviously, the move didn’t work out. A clash of styles wasn’t the only issue, though. Clawson’s system is much more complex and can be hard to pick up for players who have been committed to another system, which is why at all his stops, his offense takes about three years to get rolling.

Rocky Top didn’t have three years at that point. Impatience had boiled over. Eventually, though, the move may have worked. Bryce Petty and Tajh Boyd were both committed to Tennessee football for the future and would have been a perfect fit for Clawson’s system.

However, Fulmer would have had to let Clawson run the show, and Hamilton and the fans would have had to give Fulmer even more time amidst their impatience. While the first move was a possibility, the second move wasn’t an option at that time.