Everyone is talking about coaching changes. It’s the lunchroom, watercooler topic of conversation in football-crazy East Tennessee.

Unfortunately, the families of Tennessee’s coaches are left to sit and hear all of this speculation, but that’s par for the course. Coaches know the situation when they go into their profession … and drag their families in with them.

The speculation train is chugging like it did in 1992. “Should UT make a change?” “Can the head coach get things back on track?” “Are things even off track in the first place?” “The game has passed our coach by.” “We need something new.”

In all this frenzy of talk, there are a couple of points that have gone unstated.

One can be used by the pro-change crowd. One can be used by the anti-change crowd.

Pro-change first.

Several people have been stating the rather obvious fact that Tennessee does not have a solid recruiting base. As we broke down in this column a couple of years ago, there simply aren’t as many Tennessee players making BCS conference rosters as there are players from many other similar-sized and smaller states.

The same goes for this state’s talent making it all the way to the National Football League. Tennessee just doesn’t produce a deep pool of football prospects on a regular basis.

Therefore, as the argument goes, because UT has an excellent recruiter in Phillip Fulmer any changes at the top could be devastating to the program. In other words, “no one can get kids to come here like Fulmer has.”

There’s only one problem with that argument: facts.

Since Gen. Robert Neyland arrived in Knoxville in 1926, the Vols have had the second best winning percentage in the country. That’s 81 years of big time success (though as the proverbial bridesmaid, UT hasn’t wrapped up a lot of championships to go with all those wins).

Going into the 2007 season, Tennessee trailed only Ohio State in terms of winning percentage from ’26 to ’06. The Vols rank ahead of schools like Michigan, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas, Penn State, Southern Cal and Nebraska.

Tennessee has always been able to lure quality kids to Rocky Top, dating to Neyland’s Pennsylvania and West Virginia connections.

For those of you thinking Fulmer’s success in the 1990s has skewed the data, note that between 1926-91 (John Majors’ last full season as coach), the Vols still ranked among the top five nationally in winning percentage for the previous 66 seasons.

Any Tennessee coach, Fulmer included, will need to maintain a national recruiting base. That takes more time and effort than some coaches have to spend. But it has been doable for the past eight decades. And there’s no reason to believe that that would change if Tennessee replaces Fulmer. If, of course, the Vols find the right man.

And that’s where we get to a fact for the anti-change crowd. If this year’s Vols bottom out and a coaching change is in the offing, how in the world will Tennessee go about the search?

There’s long been the sad stereotype of inbreeding when Tennessee is mentioned in comedies and comic strips. But there is actually truth to the stereotype when it comes to Vol football coaches.

If UT winds up looking for a coach this off-season, it will be the university’s first true coaching search since Neyland came to Knoxville. At that time he was still just a Captain, far from a General.

Everyone since Neyland has had some sort of connection, some foot in the door with the program. Would Tennessee even know how to look for a new coach with no ties to the athletic department? How much leash would fans give an outsider?

The Vols went outside the family to bring in Neyland in 1926. When he was called to active duty in the Panama Canal Zone in 1934, W.H. Britton took over the program for a year. Britton was moved up from Neyland’s coaching staff.

Neyland, by then a major, was back in the saddle from 1936 to 1940, but when he was called away to war, another of his assistants, John Barnhill, took over. Barnhill had played at UT, too.

Neyland’s final stint came from 1946 to 1952 (this time as the General). But after he departed, where did Tennessee look? To another of Neyland’s former players and assistant coaches, Harvey Robinson.

Robinson was gone after 1954, replaced by — you guessed it — another former Neyland player, Bowden Wyatt. When Wyatt stepped down after 1962, his assistant, Jim McDonald, took over.

One year later, the Vols brought in Doug Dickey as coach. Now you might be thinking that that was an outside-of-the-box hire. But Tennessee’s athletic director at the time was Bob Woodruff, who’d coached Dickey while at Florida. Outside of the family? Sort of. And outsider with no connections? Nope.

After Dickey skedaddled, his assistant, Bill Battle, was promoted. After he was let go, UT called former Vol All-American Majors home. When Majors was forced out, former Vol player and longtime Majors’ assistant Fulmer was promoted.

So if Tennessee fans think their school can go out and grab someone without hassle, they might want to take a look at the history books. It’s been 80 years since a man with no ties to the program was hired to run the Vol program.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It just means that UT has no institutional experience searching for college football coaches.

John Pennington hosts the Hall’s Salvage Sports Source on Sunday at 11 a.m. on WATE.

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.