So, i have a quibble with that author
Due to the timing of the move (this all went down in early January, 2010), the Vols were forced to "settle" for Derek Dooley, who was then the head coach/athletic director at Louisiana Tech. That hasty hire led to three fruitless seasons, pushing the program even further behind its SEC peers. We were not "forced" to do anything. Hamilton just made an awful choice. And while technically true that it was a "hasty" hire, it was more properly a really horrible hire.
As stated numerous times by all kinds of people,we would have been better off keeping an interim coach during recruiting instead of rushing the selection of Dooley.
A quick review of Dooley
Never had a winning season at UT
Signature win was Cincinnati (whose coach we ironically hired!)
was 17-21 at La Tech
Went 4-19 against SEC opponents. That is not a typo! FOUR AND fizzleING NINETEEN!!!
The four wins were vandyx2, UK, and Ole Miss in a year that Ole Miss was 2-10. And one of the vandy wins was in OT.
Lost to a 3-win UK team playing a 3rd string QB, who had not played QB since HS, breaking a 34-game win streak (a record at the time) and ruining a sure bowl bid.
Went 4-8...THE MOTHER fizzleING SEASON WE fizzleING HIRED THE #badword#!
Read that last again. The University of Tennessee, second only to bammer at the time in the SEC in National and SEC championships, home of Neyland who never lost to Bear and had an unscored on season...hired a guy who had just went 4-8.
WE HIRED A fizzleING COACH THAT WAS 4-8!!!! FROM. THE. fizzleING. SUN BELT!!!!
Mike Hamilton, there is a hot place for you in football hell.
