Disrespect: Serving Up a Season Phil's Way

When I played basketball, I had two very distinct types of coaches: There was the one who wanted us practicing, talking and playing like a team expecting to win. And the other type, well, he believed in respecting our opponents so much it ended up working against us.

That dichotomy is on full display in the Southeastern Conference.

Phillip Fulmer has always seemed to enjoy being disrespected. Some would argue he thrives on it. Those who buy into that will also insist the coaches and players happily follow along. From the dots I've been able to connect over the past nine seasons, the whole notion has merit.

Generally speaking, there is no mistaking an interview with a player from Florida and a player from Tennessee. One is confident bordering on arrogant, the other is cautiously hopeful. Vols fans seem to be split on which way is preferable.

Coaches like Urban Meyer, Pete Carroll, Steve Spurrier and Bob Stoops, and certainly there's more, want players talking about their teams - their programs - as though football begins and ends with them. They want their players to take the fight to you, humiliate you early and often, and be the last team standing when the pretenders have gone home.

Meanwhile, Fulmer appears to lead with the notion that being the underdog, having their backs to the wall, being disrespected...is good. He's the anti-Spurrier/Meyer, if you will.

Interestingly enough, there are still Vols fans who insist they'd never have wanted Spurrier to coach in Knoxville. There are scores of Vols fans, now, who will bend your ear saying "no way I'd ever want Meyer on UT's sideline." Right.

Right now and for the foreseeable future, the SEC is about LSU. It's about Florida. It's about Georgia. It's about Alabama. It's about Auburn. But it is not about Tennessee. There are a myriad of reasons for this, though many Vols fans refuse to admit anything has changed since 1998.

As one media member put it at SEC Media Days, UT has essentially been in the shadows. But this is good, right? No respect, no vibe being thrown around on the Vols and that all should make for a national championship run...shouldn't it?

I don't think anyone honestly believes UT has much shot at anything relevent this season, but that's when Fulmer is most dangerous, isn't it?

When does the University of Tennessee get back to entering seasons with the college football nation looking at them with a certain level of awe and fear? When does Tennessee once again become the talk of late July and the month of August? When does Tennessee reclaim the swagger and confidence that has players and coaches feeling insulted if they aren't thought of as an SEC favorite and national championship contender?

Fulmer needs to be at his coaching best this fall because though you've not heard it mentioned, I believe this is a "hot seat" year for him. And if it's not an outright hot seat he's on, at the very least it's a lukewarm heating bag.

Sure, I know, he's had raises and contract extensions that have often defied logic. Last year, an appearance in the SEC championship game and nearly pulling off the win over LSU, followed by a bowl win over Wisconsin was viewed by some as one of the great coaching jobs of all time.

Not everyone sees it that way.

I look at Tennessee football and I see a program that has been underachieving on most every count since the 1998 championship season. I would argue the 2001 collapse against LSU in the SEC championship game negating a likely trip to the Rose Bowl for the BCS championship game has had the program in a tailspin they've still not recovered from.

The gap between the Florida's, LSU's and Georgia's is getting wider. And it's getting wider not only in talent and expectations, but in how the respective programs are viewed.

Fulmer routinely states he's not much interested in what anybody else thinks; that only the players and coaches in the room with him have the opinions that matter. That's all fine, except when the creme of recruits keep viewing Knoxville as a pass-through on the way to Gainesville, Baton Rouge or Athens.

If UT is willing to spend about $200 million renovating, updating and beautifying Neyland Stadium, perhaps the university decision-makers and check-signers can spend a few bucks on coffee and doughnuts for a meeting that takes a look beyond records and bowl games.

What they'll see is a program that has been going backwards with its eyes closed, waving to other SEC pals as they speed by them.

CGabriel is a radio talk show host, freelance writer and voiceover artist. A native of Chicago, he makes his home in Minneapolis with the three loves of his life: His beautiful wife and two daughters.