General

One More Reason For Vols Fans To Hate Lane Kiffin, As If They Really Need More

Jan 15, 2010, 10:00 PM UTC

â†µAfter striking out on plans A, B, C, and reportedly contemplating aâ†µBack to the Future plan wherein Phil Fulmer makes a dramatic return, itâ†µappears Tennessee is hiringâ†µa WAC coach who went 4-8 this year. Your lottery winner is Derekâ†µDooley, who's the head coach of a school so obscure that he's his ownâ†µathletic director. (How did I do this year, boss? Well, Iâ†µdo declare that was the most scintillating four win season I have everâ†µseen!) In three years as a head coach, Dooley's main accomplishmentâ†µis finishing second in the WAC in 2008. â†µ

â†µâ†µNever let it be said that Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamiltonâ†µisn’t a man of principle. If he wants a radically underqualified coachâ†µwhose main asset is his daddy’s reputation, by God, Tennesseeâ†µwill have a radically underqualified coach whose main asset is hisâ†µdaddy’s reputation. Derek’s father happens to be Vince Dooley, â†µ

â†µâ†µThe hire is a missed opportunity for many reasons. If it was Philâ†µFulmer, we would have seen a new world record for most deservedly smugâ†µpress conference. If it was Troy Calhoun, we would have gotten to makeâ†µTroy McClure jokes as long as he was employed there (“You mayâ†µremember me from such playcalls as That Triple Option For Twoâ†µYards and That Other Triple Option For Two Yards”).â†µAnd if Tennessee had hired David Cutcliffe we finally would have gottenâ†µa hire that made any damn sense at all. Cutcliffe is â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥the most successful coach at Ole Miss in recent history,
â†µâ‡¥one of the architects of Tennessee’s long run of success under Philâ†µâ‡¥Fulmer,
â†µâ‡¥a guy who turned Duke from a sad-sack team that had won one ACC gameâ†µâ‡¥in three years to a considerably less sad-sack team on the verge of bowlâ†µâ‡¥eligibility, and
â†µâ‡¥not prone to embarrassing himself and his employers at everyâ†µâ‡¥opportunity.

â†µâ†µâ†µHe’s a little old, but he’s not a 4-8 WAC coach. Cutcliffe to UT wasâ†µthe most obvious move since Brian Kelly to Notre Dame. How did Tennesseeâ†µwhiff here? â†µ

â†µâ†µUm, not to establish myself as a person of interest to the FBI, butâ†µit’s probably on Lane Kiffin. â†µ

â†µ

â†µKiffin and Hamilton, to be specific, are the guys who decided they'dâ†µsurround the tadpole head coach with an array of very, very well paidâ†µassistants. Assistants with multi-yearâ†µguaranteed contracts. Every single Tennessee assistant has guaranteedâ†µmoney coming in 2010; even without Orgeron and Monte Kiffin, theâ†µmoney due Tennessee assistants in 2010 comes to around 1.6 millionâ†µdollars. â†µ

â†µâ†µTennessee was loathe to part with that after getting burned by Kiffinâ†µ& Co, and every report about Cutcliffe’s pending ascension to theâ†µthrone mentioned oneâ†µlittle sticking point: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton declined to confirm an agreement withâ†µâ‡¥Cutcliffe, and one issue remaining to be settled between the two partiesâ†µâ‡¥is Cutcliffe’s staff, according to the newspaper. Cutcliffe wants toâ†µâ‡¥bring much of his staff from Duke with him to Tennessee, but there areâ†µâ‡¥six Vols assistants still left after Lane Kiffin’s departure to USC.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µOops. Cutcliffe didnt want to ditch his staff because he’s anâ†µupstanding kind of guy: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥SN: Can you address reports that there was an issueâ†µâ‡¥over your staff? You wanted to bring your assistants from Duke, andâ†µâ‡¥Tennessee wanted you to retain some people?â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥DC: All I can tell you is, I believe that loyalty isâ†µâ‡¥important from a personal standpoint, much less a business standpoint.â†µâ‡¥We were going to take our own staff. We’re a little different than mostâ†µâ‡¥folks. The coaches and their families, their children and their wives,â†µâ‡¥their parents and their wives parents, it’s pretty amazing theâ†µâ‡¥relationships we’ve developed. We’re not a normal group. I believe weâ†µâ‡¥have the best staff in America. That’s not just a recruiting thing. Iâ†µâ‡¥believe it deep in my heart. We have a mix of talent, and a lack of egosâ†µâ‡¥so that nothing gets in the way of the program. So we wanted to bringâ†µâ‡¥all our coaches and all our administrative people if we were going toâ†µâ‡¥go.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µHe was gone except for his loyalty to his coaches. Drawing a contrastâ†µbetween Kiffin and Cutcliffe is left as an extremely easy exercise forâ†µthe reader, or, more likely, the reader’s dog. And Tennessee has to goâ†µfish in the pool of kids with famous last names again. â†µ

â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

See More: