I actually think Chris Low is dead-on accurate. I think Danny White used him to get the word out on who he went after, without publicly acknowledging that our new head coach wasn't always his top choice.
Because publicly, that's what you gotta say if you're the AD, right? This guy, this one who is now our head coach, he's precisely the coach we need and exactly who we wanted. You have to support your new coach publicly.
But at the same time, Danny White is aware the fan base and public know better. They know, and they're loudly wondering who he went after first, who turned down the job. Danny's own self-interest forces him to find a way to prove that he wanted more, that he shot higher.
So he leaks the list to a trusted reporter who has always been fair to the SEC programs, including and possibly most especially Tennessee. Chris Low.
And voila, this list appears.
I think it's probably dead-on accurate, and right from the horse's mouth.
And incidentally, for the folks giving
@Stoerner Fumbles grief, this Chris Low list vindicates his source as well. Looks like everything he described did actually happen. Those giving Stoerner grief owe him an apology, it seems.
Go Vols!
p.s. The one thing this list doesn't answer is how much effort went into each of these possible hires. On the face, a simple list makes them all seem kind of co-equal. But that's not necessarily so. Some of them may have been nothing more than a brief phone call to gauge interest, no offer ever made or even discussed. Others might have been a multi-day full-court press. And others somewhere in between. We'll probably never know that element of the coaching search, but I'll trust Stoerner's friend as he described it: hard, hard push on Franklin for 3 or 4 days...shifting in the last day or so to Elliott...and then on to Heupel. The others were perhaps just phone calls or relegated to a booster to contact.
