It is fun and some times maddening to watch the usual Big Orange meltdown ever year. Is it Freeze or Enos, or how about (a) Friend. Why not just add McCarthy from Green Bay or one of our own in Jim Bob Cooter to the list of possible hires.
I think the reason is this, we are rebuilding and most of the big name coaches want to be head coaches in the near future and very few want to take a chance on be associated with a team that is rebuilding and DOES NOT have an OL able to block his scheme now and are at the minimum a 2 or 3 year project.
Freeze can walk into a better situations than UT today. Think about if you were an unemployed coach and you could spring board your career fast what would you want on your resume' . Coaching an offense of a team that is trying to go to a lower tier bowl or one that is fighting for the National Championship. Why do you think Lyle is the coffee boy.
Tennessee will never throw big money at a Head Coach or Assistant . They never have and I doubt they ever will, just check the past 50 years and see what you find. That should also answer your questions.
I notice that to us fans, we think that there is no greater program than U.T. it is like people in my neighborhood believe that their kids are the greatest kids to ever walk the earth.
The problem is that few people out side of this fan base, think so highly of Tennessee. So, we feel that we are deserving of any coach that we so choose to hire. We can't understand that when we have an opening why Cowher, Dungy, Gruden aren't in line at the A.D's office requesting an interview.
We can't understand why Saban or Myers wouldn't be willing to leave their current schools with a buyout and come to U.T. at the drop of a hat.
At this point, we are at ground zero. We need to concentrate on getting to 6 - 6 next season and in a bowl game. Then in 2020, going 7 - 6 and so forth and so on. Steady improvement is what we need....