Oral history of the Derek Dooley era at Tennessee

#26
#26
As much as I hate to admit it, I respected Vince Dooley but, couldn't stand him personally. When Derek got to UT, I liked him but he never earned my respect.

Glad they are both still gone.
 
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#27
#27
GreveHaller said:
or how about no experience.

His only HC experience was HC of an XFL team for year. Not a real resume booster.

He was nothing more than a position coach in any of his college stints. His only coordinator position was for 2 years at Mia in 98-99.

As painful as it is to say, Dooley had more experience than Kippy.
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Who says he had to be the permanent solution? Hire him as an interim coach for 2010 and get a real coach in 2011. Don't believe me, ask Ohio State.
 
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#28
#28
BearCat204 said:
Everything happens for a reason and it might have been a blessing to have experienced Dooley. If we had hired Cut at that time, we may have been drifting through mediocrity for 5 to 10 years before he was fired. Definitely dont think he would have been able to put together the recruiting classes that Jones has thus far.
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Agree. This isnt the day of Johnny Majors where there was a 10 year leash just to finish the season in the top 25. The era today is win early, win now. If you arent winning now, you need to go. It took him 6 season just to get above .500 at Duke. No way this fan base would let him survive past 3 no matter how bad or good the program was. Duke was a great place for him to go where he could take his time and build up a program. UT is not a build from scratch program.
 
#29
#29
GreveHaller said:
Agree. This isnt the day of Johnny Majors where there was a 10 year leash just to finish the season in the top 25. The era today is win early, win now. If you arent winning now, you need to go. It took him 6 season just to get above .500 at Duke. No way this fan base would let him survive past 3 no matter how bad or good the program was. Duke was a great place for him to go where he could take his time and build up a program. UT is not a build from scratch program.
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That's basically what it was when BJ took over
 
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#31
#31
The huge takeaway from that article to me is this: After so many in that article talked about how terrible Dooley was to people and how dismissive and rude he was to alumni and former players. What the hell was Mike Hamilton doing in the Dooley interview???? Sleeping? Was he drunk? I mean, what the hell. Maybe Dooley walked in on Hamilton and a farm animal. I don't know. It's impossible to figure out. So glad that era is over.
 
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#33
#33
This is a good article to go back to, from time to time, to remember how far we'd fallen and how dark the Dark Ages really were. Very good synopsis of a very bad period in our program's life.

You can best judge the tremendous reach of the mountaintops from the valley floor. We should never forget.
 
#34
#34
The 1st thing Butch did when he got here (which Dooley never did) was rally the troops (fans, alums, VFL's, media) and said we're all in this together.

Butch was likable from day one because we felt connected. With that, Butch has bought himself some time and has gotten a couple of "free passes" along the way. Yes, we were all mad about the UF game (last 2 seasons) but we quickly got back on the train.

We still don't know if Butch can win games in the SEC at a clip we want but we're willing to give him a chance because of what he's done on the PR trail.
 
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#35
#35
SGMVols said:
Who says he had to be the permanent solution? Hire him as an interim coach for 2010 and get a real coach in 2011. Don't believe me, ask Ohio State.
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And plenty of people said this at the time, but this whole site caught Dooley fever immediately
 
#36
#36
Yankee_Vol said:
That's basically what it was when BJ took over
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BearCat204 said:
Hurting, yes, but definitely not build from scratch program like a Duke.
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As BC said, we were hurting but we were NEVER starting from scratch. Never. What we've gone thru since Fulmer was fired is nothing like what Duke has experienced and I cant believe someone would even attempt to compare our recent struggles to what Duke has done over and over.

Before Cut got to Duke their last winning season was 1994. Before then 1989. They've had 4 zero win seasons since 1996, 2 one win seasons, 3 two win seasons. In fact, before Cut got there and since 1981 they only had 5 winning seasons. So to say we were building from scratch just like Duke is nuts. One should check their facts closely before drawing conclusions.
 
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#38
#38
BearCat204 said:
Hurting, yes, but definitely not build from scratch program like a Duke.
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Where the SEC was/is now it wasn't pretty. Butch has done a damn good job in a very short amount of time to get us back where we belong talent wise.

I am not comparing Duke to Tennessee.

Cut has done an amazing job there. To say he may or may not have been successful here doesn't really matter, and you really can't. It'd be pure speculation.
 
#39
#39
Yankee_Vol said:
Where the SEC was/is now it wasn't pretty. Butch has done a damn good job in a very short amount of time to get us back where we belong talent wise.

I am not comparing Duke to Tennessee.

Cut has done an amazing job there. To say he may or may not have been successful here doesn't really matter, and you really can't. It'd be pure speculation.
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Whoah there pal :) I never said anything about Jones not doing a damn good job here, but Tennessee wasnt a "build from scratch program" when he took over IMO.
 
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#41
#41
The real howler in this article was near the end where one of the commenters gave Dooley the credit for the capital improvements done while he was head coach. My take is that if all our head coaches had Dooley's acumen, what could have been built would have been put to shame by Sewanee's stadium.
 
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#42
#42
BearCat204 said:
Whoah there pal :) I never said anything about Jones not doing a damn good job here, but Tennessee wasnt a "build from scratch program" when he took over IMO.
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I never said it was. I said basically, which is open for interpretation. Which you and a couple of others took quite literal.
 
#44
#44
SGMVols said:
Who says he had to be the permanent solution? Hire him as an interim coach for 2010 and get a real coach in 2011. Don't believe me, ask Ohio State.
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Wouldn't that have been even more disrespectful to Kippy? "Hold this down until we get a real coach". Luke Fickell doing that for Ohio State is an inexact example. Fickell was an established staff member who was never a serious candidate...thus perfect for a one year placeholder. Kippy had irons in the fire...longtime WR coach for Tennessee and other programs, as well as a stint at OC for the Dolphins. He had just rejoined the Vols before Kiffin scooted out. You would have had to hire him legitimately...that's what he interviewed as, a legitimate candidate. If you were going to slap the interim label on anybody Kiffin left behind? Chaney should have been the guy. With the ultimate wisdom of hindsight, Sumlin would have been the prize.
 
#45
#45
Very painful to read, doesn't make it any less true I guess. Just like that well done article doesn't make Clay any less of a Vol hating turd. (I loved the two books of his I read though) Makes me appreciate the heck out of CBJ.
 
#46
#46
A lot of what the media guys said is fairly common knowledge. Dooley was the weirdest guy when it came to interviews.

I know he learned from Saban, and Saban is a complete jerk to the media. But you can earn the right to be a jerk by winning. Dooley seemed to think he could skip that step.
 
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#47
#47
VolsnRavens said:
The huge takeaway from that article to me is this: After so many in that article talked about how terrible Dooley was to people and how dismissive and rude he was to alumni and former players. What the hell was Mike Hamilton doing in the Dooley interview???? Sleeping? Was he drunk? I mean, what the hell. Maybe Dooley walked in on Hamilton and a farm animal. I don't know. It's impossible to figure out. So glad that era is over.
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He probably interviewed like his introductory press conference. Very impressive and reassuring...he just couldn't maintain the bull. His warts started showing quickly after his hire. I overlooked them because I'm always pulling for our coach and team to succeed. Don't think I was alone.
 
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#49
#49
Great article, and brings back some painful memories. It was so obvious to anyone with a clue that he was a complete failure halfway into the 2011 season, but it couldn't have been more clear after the UK game. 2012 will always go down as such a massive disappointment given the talent on that team, right up there with 2005.

Like others have said, it seems like the Dooley era was 10 years ago. Thank god.
 
#50
#50
GreveHaller said:
As BC said, we were hurting but we were NEVER starting from scratch. Never. What we've gone thru since Fulmer was fired is nothing like what Duke has experienced and I cant believe someone would even attempt to compare our recent struggles to what Duke has done over and over.

Before Cut got to Duke their last winning season was 1994. Before then 1989. They've had 4 zero win seasons since 1996, 2 one win seasons, 3 two win seasons. In fact, before Cut got there and since 1981 they only had 5 winning seasons. So to say we were building from scratch just like Duke is nuts. One should check their facts closely before drawing conclusions.
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Wait, on Volnation? Now you're just talking crazy.
 
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