Thanks for the replies.
Anecdotally, he was not well liked in his first stop in Knoxville. He also learned at the feet of Mike Hamilton, a man partly responsible for tanking our AD. David Blackburn is a local who would have been a slam dunk, and Phil Fulmer made a late run at the job thanks to his donor affiliations. Not many were expecting this.
Can you give a wiki on how Phil is treated? Seemed like a bit of regret with what seemed like an apparent force out (at first), then a run at the AD like he is Barry Alvarez.
Phil is a Tennessee guy who's been around the program for 40+ years. He got the job at the expense of Vol legend Johnny Majors. From that point on, there's been a rift in the fanbase between the Fulmer and Majors loyalists. Fulmer stuck around a little too long (imo). We lost to Vandy in 05 and Wyoming in 08. He felt wronged by his firing and probably always will. There are a lot of Vol fans that feel the same way.
To answer your question, I would say the majority like Fulmer while there are many that are still loyal to Majors.
Politically, Fulmer has always been well connected, and it was impressive to see him get his name in the AD contest over the last several weeks. There were donors who wanted Fulmer and donors that wanted Blackburn. Our new chancellor (Beverly Davenport) got to have at least some say in this because the search went on too long. Apparently many donors were blindsided by this hire. It's going to be interesting to see how this goes with Currie.