Tennessee has no excuse to fail at college football.
The Vols have a history of stability and success. During a 32-year stretch, they employed just two coaches: Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer. They won back-to-back SEC titles under Fulmer, with the 1998 squad finishing 13-0 to win the national title.
Their brand is distinctive and enduring. Their resources rank with the sport’s elite. Their fan base is huge and passionate.
Even last season, when they finished 4-8 and went winless in conference play, the Vols still reported an average attendance of 95,779 — seventh-highest in the country.
Yet somehow Tennessee has lagged back in the SEC East pack for much of the past decade. One coach after another either bailed or failed.
The mercurial Lane Kiffin replaced Fulmer and left after one 7-6 season to coach USC. Derek Dooley replaced Kiffin, won just four of 23 SEC games and failed to survive his third campaign.
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Next up was Butch Jones, who upgraded Tennessee’s recruiting and won the TaxSlayer, Outback and Music City Bowls. But he went 5-15 against Associated Press-ranked opponents and flamed out during his fifth season.
Now it’s Jeremy Pruitt’s turn as the program’s fifth coach in the past 11 years. He was hired by Fulmer, the school’s fourth athletics director during that tumultuous span.
Pruitt has scored two victories over ranked teams this season, winning at Auburn 30-24 Oct. 13 and handling Kentucky 24-7 at home Saturday. That put the Vols on the brink of bowl eligibility heading into Saturday’s home game against Missouri.
“I guess when you maybe look at the big picture, that’s probably a big deal,” Pruitt said during his Monday news conference in Knoxville. “We’re focused on trying to improve today, learn from our mistakes we made Saturday. Hopefully we won’t make them again. Get focused on Missouri and find a way to play our best football.”
Last season the Vols played their worst football against Mizzou, losing 50-17 to end the Butch Jones Era. This season they are learning how to win again.
Pruitt thanks his inherited seniors for making that process smoother. “If you look back, there’s been some really good times for this group, and probably some times they wished they had back,” he said. “But in the last 11 months, these guys have really bought in and tried to do what we asked them to do.”
So how did it get to this point? Time after time the school made the wrong hire, often overestimating how top candidates viewed this job before settling for a lesser choice.
The trouble started in 2008 when then-athletics director Mike Hamilton hired Kiffin. This was a package deal, with Lane’s father Monte — an esteemed defensive coordinator — coming with him to gloss over Lane’s youthful failure with the Oakland Raiders.
Kiffin never felt comfortable in the Knoxville fishbowl and he never grew into the job. He incorrectly accused coach Urban Meyer of a recruiting violation at Florida. Vols hostesses went to South Carolina to flirt with prep recruits. Kiffin bad-mouthed the Gamecocks program, drawing the ire of coach Steve Spurrier.
But Kiffin did energize the program during his one season — building a potential Top 5 recruiting class along the way — so his abrupt exit for USC sent Vols fans into mattress-burning frenzy.
Hamilton considered the likes of Will Muschamp, Troy Calhoun, David Cutcliffe and Kyle Whittingham next before reaching for Dooley. Although he had scored two top-ranked classes as recruiting coordinator at LSU working under Nick Saban, Dooley had a middling run (17-20 overall, one Independence Bowl victory) as coach and athletics director at Louisiana Tech.
Dooley, now the offensive coordinator at Mizzou, was nowhere near ready to become a head coach in the SEC back then. So Tennessee’s next athletics director, Dave Hart, went shopping for an upgrade after Dooley’s dismissal in 2012.
He hired Jones away from Cincinnati after a protracted search failed to interest big names like Jon Gruden and Charlie Strong. Jones raised expectations by attracting talent, then he dashed them with game mismanagement.
His eventual demise gave the next athletics director, John Currie, his chance to make his signature move. Dan Mullen would have been a great hire, but Florida got him instead. Currie was set to hire Greg Schiano before feeling big-time blowback because of Schiano’s connection to the Jerry Sandusky-Penn State child abuse scandal.
After Mike Gundy, Jeff Brohm and Dave Doeren passed, Currie zeroed in on eccentric Washington State coach Mike Leach. Could you imagine Leach working in the heart of Waffle House Nation?
Alumni shuddered. So Fulmer replaced the floundering Currie as AD and made a sensible hire with Pruitt, Saban’s defensive coordinator at Alabama.
Once again the Vols are trying to reestablish themselves as an SEC East power. But chasing away the ghosts of past failures is not easy.
Last week Kiffin, now head coach at Florida Atlantic, trolled Fulmer on Twitter. He posed for a picture with Majors, called him “the greatest Tennessee coach ever” and then tagged Fulmer’s account. That poked at a wound that dates back to 1992, when Fulmer replaced Majors after allegedly undermining him.
Will the silliness ever end? Fulmer, Pruitt and long-frustrated Vols fans can only hope so.