Tommy Tuberville or Phil Fulmer: Who Gets off the Bench First?

This time last year, everyone would agree that Tommy Tuberville and Phillip Fulmer were two of the nation's best coaches with some of the best winning percentages. Plus, they were doing it in the SEC, where winning is tougher than most conferences.

What a difference a year makes.

Now both sit on the unemployment bench, biding their time, twiddling their thumbs, and wondering just where everything went wrong. Both were victims of schools that didn't reward them with time to fix the problems of this past season.

Unlike assistant coaches and coordinators who happily snap up the next offer and move from school to school, head coaches, especially Tuberville and Fulmer, do not often accept "another job." It's just too hard to go from head coach at a premier school back to assistant—or take a job at a little school.

And why should they? Tuberville and Fulmer walked away with some serious cash. It's not like they have to work to keep paying the bills. With the salaries they've made over the last several years, they could easily retire and fade into the sunset.

But both have still stated that they may not be through with coaching. It's not like either was caught in a sex scandal with his secretary, lied about it, and then paid out a huge settlement, à la Mike Dubose—or took a fine program, ran it into the ground, and got caught selling "inside" information to boosters, à la Dennis Franchione.

They just had bad years. It's not like either forgot how to coach. Both still retain Jimmy Sexton as their agent—and yet both still sit by phones that refuse to ring.

They are the new Maytag repairmen of college football.

Time will tell if either of them will return to coaching. For some, it's been a hard road.

In the case of Mike Dubose, he was willing to do anything to get back into coaching. He took gigs at high schools and then at little Millsaps College where he's turned around their program, built them into national contenders, and quietly rebuilt his reputation as a coach. 

In my opinion, he'd make a great Division I head coach now that he's seasoned himself.

For Franchione, he was unwilling to take "a job" and has done nothing but some cable TV color for peanuts. For all intents and purposes, his career as a coach is over and may be over for good. 

Time will tell how long Fulmer and Tuberville will wait. Terry Bowden waited 10 years to get another gig, and it is at lowly University of North Alabama in the Gulf South Conference.

Could it be this bad for Tuberville and Fulmer?