John Adams: Which Phillip Fulmer might Tennessee get as AD?

A question Tennessee fans often ask themselves this basketball season: “Which team will show up?”

The question applies to both men’s and women’s teams, whose performances vary greatly from one game to the next.

But maybe Tennessee fans who want former UT football coach Phillip Fulmer as their next athletic director should ask a variation of that same question: “Which Fulmer would show up?”

Phillip Fulmer emerges as candidate to be Tennessee's athletics director

This is a crucial time for an athletic department awash in mediocrity. UT’s recent 113th fall ranking in the Directors' Cup standings was just another example of that.

The SEC rankings better reflect UT’s state of affairs. It’s last in the conference in the Directors' Cup.

Those rankings are just one of the challenges facing Tennessee’s next athletic director.

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Fulmer is regarded as a strong candidate even though he has no sports administrative experience beyond his work as a longtime football coach at Tennessee.

But he’s a native Tennessean and a former UT player. That resonates greatly with many fans and alums, all of whom cherish Fulmer’s finest hour, a 1998 national championship in football.

While that might help his candidacy for the athletic director’s job, it won’t help him manage a department that badly needs good management.

John Adams: Phillip Fulmer as Tennessee AD? Don't laugh

And the last thing it needs is someone comfortable resting on his laurels, content just to be Tennessee’s athletic director.

Translation: UT needs the Fulmer who was driven to take Tennessee to the top of college football, not the complacent Fulmer who presided over the program’s decline.

Being hired as athletic director at a major program would provide an ego boost for anyone, especially someone who was fired by the same school. No doubt, Fulmer would enjoy being back in a position of prominence, living off UT and regaining jet access. And his family could pretend to be British royalty again.

But sustaining popularity as a sports administrator isn’t easy. Doing the job right often means making tough - and sometimes, unpopular - decisions.

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Fulmer is accustomed to being popular. As an athletic director, he would have a chance to be more than popular. He actually could improve his legacy.

If Fulmer were hired as athletic director, he could be in a position to hire coaches in every major sport. What an opportunity to leave your mark.

Of course, football leaves the biggest mark. And no one knows that more than Fulmer, Tennessee’s full-time football coach from 1993 through 2008.

If Fulmer were hired as athletic director, there might be a concern about him meddling in the football program he once ran. There’s a difference in managing and meddling, though.

Fulmer knows what it takes to beat Alabama. He knows what it takes to win the SEC. So he could be an asset to coach Butch Jones, whose program has underachieved the past two seasons, putting him firmly on the hot seat entering his fifth season.

It’s an athletic director’s job to do everything he can to help his coaches succeed. But it’s also his job to determine whether his coaches are capable of succeeding at the level a program with all of Tennessee’s resources should expect.

And that determination should be made sooner than later.

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him on Twitter: @johnadamsKNS.