I can't. I still haven't forgiven Hamilton. In November-December 2008, this program was still one of the most respected programs in all of college football. Could we have picked any coach we wanted? No. But this was probably one of the top 10 or so coaching jobs in America at that time. We didn't need to take a wild swing at the fences. We could've taken a safe swing into shallow right with a runner in scoring position. We went for a wet-behind-the-ears, fresh-out-of-the-cradle virtual nobody who had been fired after less than one season with the Raiders.
That was Hamilton's MO. He prided himself on being a money man first and foremost. He could solicit donations with the best of them, but he also saw himself as a cost-cutter. By hiring bargain bin coaches, he could pad the bottom line. He struck gold with Bruce Pearl, and that just emboldened him. But the Kiffin experiment was a huge failure and we're still paying for it today.
A couple nits. As pointed out to me on another message board, Kiffin actually was with the Raiders for ~ 1.5 seasons. He got fired by Al Davis halfway into his second season, which is still pretty bad.
If you are looking to me to defend the Kiffin hiring, forget it. Never said that was a good hire. I did say that we still could have recovered in Jan 2010 from the one-year fiasco. Plenty of talent was left from Fulmer, and Lane had a decent (not great as some claim, but decent) single year recruiting also. With just about anyone BUT Dooley, I think the program still could have recovered.
The worst thing about those years was having to listen to Kiffin and then Dooley spout off about how they needed to "restore" things. We hadn't fallen that far. I even recall gator fans on Mudlizard stating that Tennessee didn't need to be "restored", it hadn't fallen that far. When your enemies say things like that, it says something.
The other thing is that that Kiffin is considered a hot coaching commodity now. I am not sold yet, maybe he is a good HC now, maybe he isn't. Finebaum certainly has been fawning over him (Kiffin is a good interview I guess, creates buzz, etc. WETF).
But whatever you say about Kiffin I will likely mostly agree with), but Dooley is the worst hire of this entire lost decade, and it's not even close.