The Tennessee Vols football program has two names on an embarrassing top 25 list
CBS Sports dropped a Top 25 list this week that no college football program wants to be associated with. But unfortunately for the Tennessee Vols, they landed it on twice. CBS Sports ranked the top 25 worst head coach hires of the last 25 years. Tennessee, which has made five head coaching hires since the […]
CBS Sports dropped a Top 25 list this week that no college football program wants to be associated with.
But unfortunately for the Tennessee Vols, they landed it on twice.
CBS Sports ranked the top 25 worst head coach hires of the last 25 years. Tennessee, which has made five head coaching hires since the turn of the century, had two names on the list.
Tennessee's hiring of Derek Dooley in 2010 came in at No. 10.
From CBS Sports: Dooley had the pedigree but not the resume when Tennessee hired Vince Dooley's son to replace Lane Kiffin. Dooley had only made a single bowl game and had a 17-20 record at Louisiana Tech before making a jump to Knoxville that proved to be too big for him. Dooley went 3-2 against Kentucky and Vanderbilt, 0-6 against Georgia and South Carolina, finished sixth in the SEC East twice and lost 14 of his last 15 SEC games. Dooley led Tennessee to its first back-to-back losing seasons in 100 years and set the program back years.
The Vols' hiring of Jeremy Pruitt in late 2017 came in at No. 7.
From CBS Sports: Pruitt was the end result of an embarrassing coaching search that featured a fan revolt over the expected hire (Greg Schiano), the firing of an AD (John Currie) and almost-hires (Mike Leach). Pruitt had the SEC pedigree but quickly proved he was no Kirby Smart. His time in Knoxville not only didn't meet expectations, but invited serious NCAA scrutiny into a program that was allegedly handing out money to player parents in fast food bags. In the end, Tennessee was found to have committed hundreds of NCAA violations and multiple coaches, including Pruitt, received multi-year show-cause penalties.
Both of those hires were disastrous for Tennessee. But to be fair to the Vols, the program didn't exactly have a plethora of choices during either of those hiring cycles. Tennessee hired Dooley after Lane Kiffin left the program in January (no coach was going to leave for that job just a month before National Signing Day).
Pruitt, meanwhile, was hired after the Vols fired their athletic director and dealt with a fan revolt following the attempted hire of Greg Schiano. Coaches weren't exactly lining up to take the Tennessee job at the time.
The Vols, though, weren't the only program to have multiple names on CBS Sports' list. Kansas and Purdue also had two names each on the list.
And Alabama, which has been by far the most successful college football program this century, came in at No. 1 with their hire of Mike Price in 2003. Price never coached a game for the Crimson Tide due to some off-field issues.
