Hell officially frozen over! Phil Fulmer references Johnny Majors to defend Jeremy Pruitt!

Might explain the cold snap we’ve been having, too.

Marky Billson

Tennessee athletic director Phil Fulmer is feeling the pressure of hiring head football coach Jeremy Pruitt.

That’s evident when he’s comparing his hire to John Majors on the “Vol Calls” radio program Wednesday night.

It’s well known Fulmer and Majors had contempt for each other. For Fulmer, it was the feeling he should be the full-time football coach at Tennessee after he went 3–0 as interim head football coach in 1992.

Why else would he make 26 phone calls to Bill Johnson, then on the University of Tennessee’s board of directors, while Majors recovered from quadruple bypass heart surgery at that time?

Majors felt he had been backstabbed by Fulmer, then his assistant. He often refused to even address Fulmer by name, calling him “my successor” in interviews, and felt the success Fulmer enjoyed initially as head coach was more a product of the foundation Majors himself had left for him (facilities, Heath Shuler, etc.).

This shot, taken at a 2015 event to honor Doug Dickey, is the Tennessee football equivalent of Frank Sinatra bringing together Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at the latter’s telethon in 1976. Only without the warm sentiment.