Considering all the leadership changes over the past decade-plus, there’s no common thread beyond this: bad coach hires. (And, I suppose, the lack of a consistent philosophy and vision in high-level university leadership, because of all the changes.) Some of that is bad leadership. Some of it is bad luck.
Lane Kiffin was a solid hire and the USC job coming open was a disastrous break. Three coaches in three seasons is a worst-case scenario for almost any program. I compare it to competition cooking shows when they make chefs switch dishes every 10 minutes in a 30-minute cook. They have to figure out what the other chef was doing, make the best of it and try to mold it into something that reflects their own vision. The final result is always underwhelming.
One of the biggest what-ifs in Tennessee history is what happens if Kiffin has a normal tenure. He’s a far better coach today than he was back then, but he’s the best coach Tennessee has hired since Fulmer.
As for the others, one thing I’ve always believed shows the worth of a coach is what happens to him after he’s fired. When a coach has a big job, everybody will sing his praises, but when he gets fired, where he lands is telling. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances, but I’ve found the coach’s job and what he does in that job to be a real indicator of how good a coach really is.
Derek Dooley’s receivers unit with the Cowboys was one of the most underachieving position groups in the NFL after he left Tennessee. When he took over Missouri’s offense (stepping into Josh Heupel’s vacated seat), he inherited an NFL quarterback in Drew Lock, but the Tigers dipped by almost a full yard per play and fell from No. 6 nationally to No. 24. The next year, Mizzou dropped to No. 99 in offensive YPP and head coach Barry Odom was fired. I will be surprised if Dooley is a Power 5 head coach again at any point.
Butch Jones’ resume was as good as anyone’s when he arrived at Tennessee, but the fishbowl nature of the Tennessee job made his personality a poor fit. He even admitted as much when I asked him earlier this year what he’d tell the 2013 version of himself.
“I would say just keeping the main thing the main thing and staying focused on our players, recruiting and the overall development of everyone in our organization,” Jones said. “Can’t let any outside clutter or distractions kick in.”
Jones was distracted by a lot of things that don’t ultimately matte, and seemed to be far too invested in petty PR issues.
Nick Saban bringing you on his staff in any capacity is one of the highest compliments a coach can receive. I was perplexed when Jones never moved up to an on-field job with Alabama through all the turnover on Saban’s staff, but I also found it interesting that he landed a good head coaching job at Arkansas State a couple of weeks before his buyout checks from Tennessee ended. I expect him to do well at a place that’s well-suited for him to succeed. He’ll be back in the Power 5 eventually, but what happens there is tough to project after the crush of the Tennessee job seemed to beat him down by the end.
Jeremy Pruitt’s ignorance of those distractions was an asset, but his personality leaned so hard into avoiding distractions it crossed the line into becoming a fault. He was almost entirely uninterested in anything that wasn’t recruiting, coaching ball, X’s and O’s or player development. And his delegation was poor. The best coaches are great at that, and that was a big part of his downfall. I’ve said for years that in the modern game, being a head coach of a big-time program is a lot more like being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company than being a football coach. You need to know a lot of football, but you need to know a ton of other things, too. Most of which can only be learned by experiencing it.
Pruitt is a great football coach and a smart guy who has to learn some of those most difficult parts of a difficult job. Tennessee exposed some of his worst instincts. When things went sideways, he’d want to put another hand on the wheel and squeeze until his knuckles were ghost white. That backfired at Tennessee, one of the worst places in college football to learn how to be a head coach. This is a difficult job with a lot of challenges and a lot of expectation. Hiring a first-time head coach to rebuild this program is a risky proposition that went poorly when the Vols tried it.
Because of the scandal, it’s probably not fair to judge Pruitt’s coaching acumen based on his newest job, an off-field role with the Giants. Without the recruiting scandal looming, I’d have expected him to get a seven-figure defensive coordinator job if he wanted it. Pruitt’s name surfaced at Texas to be Steve Sarkisian’s new defensive coordinator, but the scandal didn’t help his odds there. Until this saga is over, it’s hard to see him returning to college football. The biggest question I had about Pruitt when he arrived is how he would do when his roster wasn’t stacked. His defenses were great at Georgia, Florida State and Alabama, but at all three stops, he had better rosters than his opponent in 90 percent of his games, if not more.
I’ll be interested to see where Pruitt lands. Considering the complexity of his scheme (and, of course, the NCAA storm clouds), he might be better suited to coach at the pros in his next full-time step. Either way, he’s a great football coach who struggled with the CEO aspect of being a coach. He made some enemies on campus and was often more abrasive to those inside his program than some would deem necessary. He didn’t help himself doing that. People are a lot more likely to put up with that if you’re winning 10 games every year, and nobody’s done that at Tennessee for decades.
So, to circle back to your question: It’s not like Tennessee is a black hole where great coaches have struggled for reasons unknown. Tennessee has hired coaches whose flaws have become their undoing, and it got unlucky with Kiffin.
I still believe if Tennessee hires the right coach, he can revive the program. Every time another coach stays at Tennessee for 2-4 years and gets fired, it digs the program’s hole even deeper and makes the odds that the “right guy” will want to come to Tennessee even steeper.
Stability, even if it’s underwhelming compared to what fans ultimately desire, will help this program in a holistic way more than fans realize as it’s happening. Fans won’t be happy winning 7-8 games, but a streak like that, or going to four bowl games in five years at some point, would do far more for the program than firing yet another coach who can’t win the SEC in Year 4.
Lane Kiffin was a solid hire and the USC job coming open was a disastrous break. Three coaches in three seasons is a worst-case scenario for almost any program. I compare it to competition cooking shows when they make chefs switch dishes every 10 minutes in a 30-minute cook. They have to figure out what the other chef was doing, make the best of it and try to mold it into something that reflects their own vision. The final result is always underwhelming.
One of the biggest what-ifs in Tennessee history is what happens if Kiffin has a normal tenure. He’s a far better coach today than he was back then, but he’s the best coach Tennessee has hired since Fulmer.
As for the others, one thing I’ve always believed shows the worth of a coach is what happens to him after he’s fired. When a coach has a big job, everybody will sing his praises, but when he gets fired, where he lands is telling. Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances, but I’ve found the coach’s job and what he does in that job to be a real indicator of how good a coach really is.
Derek Dooley’s receivers unit with the Cowboys was one of the most underachieving position groups in the NFL after he left Tennessee. When he took over Missouri’s offense (stepping into Josh Heupel’s vacated seat), he inherited an NFL quarterback in Drew Lock, but the Tigers dipped by almost a full yard per play and fell from No. 6 nationally to No. 24. The next year, Mizzou dropped to No. 99 in offensive YPP and head coach Barry Odom was fired. I will be surprised if Dooley is a Power 5 head coach again at any point.
Butch Jones’ resume was as good as anyone’s when he arrived at Tennessee, but the fishbowl nature of the Tennessee job made his personality a poor fit. He even admitted as much when I asked him earlier this year what he’d tell the 2013 version of himself.
“I would say just keeping the main thing the main thing and staying focused on our players, recruiting and the overall development of everyone in our organization,” Jones said. “Can’t let any outside clutter or distractions kick in.”
Jones was distracted by a lot of things that don’t ultimately matte, and seemed to be far too invested in petty PR issues.
Nick Saban bringing you on his staff in any capacity is one of the highest compliments a coach can receive. I was perplexed when Jones never moved up to an on-field job with Alabama through all the turnover on Saban’s staff, but I also found it interesting that he landed a good head coaching job at Arkansas State a couple of weeks before his buyout checks from Tennessee ended. I expect him to do well at a place that’s well-suited for him to succeed. He’ll be back in the Power 5 eventually, but what happens there is tough to project after the crush of the Tennessee job seemed to beat him down by the end.
Jeremy Pruitt’s ignorance of those distractions was an asset, but his personality leaned so hard into avoiding distractions it crossed the line into becoming a fault. He was almost entirely uninterested in anything that wasn’t recruiting, coaching ball, X’s and O’s or player development. And his delegation was poor. The best coaches are great at that, and that was a big part of his downfall. I’ve said for years that in the modern game, being a head coach of a big-time program is a lot more like being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company than being a football coach. You need to know a lot of football, but you need to know a ton of other things, too. Most of which can only be learned by experiencing it.
Pruitt is a great football coach and a smart guy who has to learn some of those most difficult parts of a difficult job. Tennessee exposed some of his worst instincts. When things went sideways, he’d want to put another hand on the wheel and squeeze until his knuckles were ghost white. That backfired at Tennessee, one of the worst places in college football to learn how to be a head coach. This is a difficult job with a lot of challenges and a lot of expectation. Hiring a first-time head coach to rebuild this program is a risky proposition that went poorly when the Vols tried it.
Because of the scandal, it’s probably not fair to judge Pruitt’s coaching acumen based on his newest job, an off-field role with the Giants. Without the recruiting scandal looming, I’d have expected him to get a seven-figure defensive coordinator job if he wanted it. Pruitt’s name surfaced at Texas to be Steve Sarkisian’s new defensive coordinator, but the scandal didn’t help his odds there. Until this saga is over, it’s hard to see him returning to college football. The biggest question I had about Pruitt when he arrived is how he would do when his roster wasn’t stacked. His defenses were great at Georgia, Florida State and Alabama, but at all three stops, he had better rosters than his opponent in 90 percent of his games, if not more.
I’ll be interested to see where Pruitt lands. Considering the complexity of his scheme (and, of course, the NCAA storm clouds), he might be better suited to coach at the pros in his next full-time step. Either way, he’s a great football coach who struggled with the CEO aspect of being a coach. He made some enemies on campus and was often more abrasive to those inside his program than some would deem necessary. He didn’t help himself doing that. People are a lot more likely to put up with that if you’re winning 10 games every year, and nobody’s done that at Tennessee for decades.
So, to circle back to your question: It’s not like Tennessee is a black hole where great coaches have struggled for reasons unknown. Tennessee has hired coaches whose flaws have become their undoing, and it got unlucky with Kiffin.
I still believe if Tennessee hires the right coach, he can revive the program. Every time another coach stays at Tennessee for 2-4 years and gets fired, it digs the program’s hole even deeper and makes the odds that the “right guy” will want to come to Tennessee even steeper.
Stability, even if it’s underwhelming compared to what fans ultimately desire, will help this program in a holistic way more than fans realize as it’s happening. Fans won’t be happy winning 7-8 games, but a streak like that, or going to four bowl games in five years at some point, would do far more for the program than firing yet another coach who can’t win the SEC in Year 4.
