Ranking the UT Coaches All Time

I’m personally tired of hearing how CPF is the best coach of all time. This absurdity is spouted with regularity by the CPF apologists who want everyone to quit criticizing him so the won’t lose their practice passes and insider status. News Flash: Every season CPF stays in charge without making necessary changes to improve the program, the less your practice pass is worth. This doesn’t mean recycling coaches in the coaching version of the FRS (Fulmer Relocation System). If you don’t know what that means, go to the OuterMonVOLia forums and ask for a definition. What changes does he need to make? He needs to hire some talented assistants who are on their way up, not a tired assistant on his way out. He needs to unleash his new offensive coordinator to install a new, high powered offense that makes use of the talent that he (yes, CPF gets the credit in my book) has brought into the school. I don’t buy that the talent has fallen. I argue that the coaching has REALLY fallen.

Here’s the truth. You cannot argue with the facts. Neyland won more games than CPF will coach (unless he makes the changes). This data is sorted by winning percentage. Neyland set the bar so high, that only 3 coaches other than he and CPF are above the program average of 67.3% of games won.

My Top 5 Rankings:

1. The General. No case necessary, as he owns 23% of the program’s all-time wins.
2. Barnhill: Look at what he did elsewhere! If he had been a bit younger, he could have followed Neyland with similar success. Instead, he did a great job keeping it together until the General could come back and continue his work.
3. Fulmer: He took the talent Majors brought in and did great things. Sure he was a handful of losses from 4 MNC’s instead of 1MNC… but at least he used to be good enough to get us close. The longer he coaches without making dramatic improvements, well, that’s a dead horse I don’t need to beat anymore.
4. Majors: If he hadn’t been stabbed in the back, I am fairly certain he would have earned his second MNC (and first leading the VOLS). He had the pieces the year he was fired, and just needed to let them gel. Majors would have beaten Florida in 1993 and had us playing for a title in the Sugar Bowl.
5. Dickey: Only because Battle completely collapsed.

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