re: Official Alabama Melt Thread

quote:

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Funny how you UT fans like to slam on Battle as a coach, he had a .723 winning % and Johnny Majors had one of .645.

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Not slamming Battle he did a lot of good for us. BUT that stat is misleading. He had three good seasons 11-1, 10-2, 10-2, followed by a steady decline.

1973 Tennessee 8–4
1974 Tennessee 7–3–2
1975 Tennessee 7–5
1976 Tennessee 6–5

More telling is that despite his first few seasons his conference record was: 22–18–1. That's just not good any way you slice it. That said, while Majors is a legend for many reasons (he righted the ship despite it taking a long while to rebuild) he's never been one of my favorite coaches W-L wise. His job was hard and he came here after winning a Natty at Pitt so it's not as tho the man couldn't coach. But there's no question, Fulmer was a better coach.

Many UT fans will tell you the 70s are basically the only era that compares to our recent doldrums.

Majors had to clean that decline up. The 70s were bad for us and it was a recruiting hole that Battle got us into.