Author Topic: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?  (Read 159947 times)

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Offline MadCat

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1400 on: April 10, 2018, 09:09:01 AM »
Should definitely go in the wiki.

Offline bones129

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1401 on: April 11, 2018, 12:00:42 AM »
Currie leaves and UT goes out of control. Sad.

Offline Big Sam

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Well, UT fired their chancellor today.  Apparently, she could not overcome the Currie hire.

Offline ednksu

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Well, UT fired their chancellor today.  Apparently, she could not overcome the Currie hire.
Wrong: it was because of poor communications skills. Better get her a sweet landing spot at the communications department.


(the speculation is that she was canned because she went against Gov Haslam's plan to outsource/privatize maintenance and janitorial jobs at UT.)
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Offline ChiComCat

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Well, UT fired their chancellor today.  Apparently, she could not overcome the Currie hire.
Wrong: it was because of poor communications skills. Better get her a sweet landing spot at the communications department.


(the speculation is that she was canned because she went against Gov Haslam's plan to outsource/privatize maintenance and janitorial jobs at UT.)

The article I read said Currie, non-privatizing of jobs, and going to an LGBTQ event.  Basically, Currie and not being Republican enough.

I can't believe how shitty the letter is that was released to the public though, particularly when you're supposedly keeping her on staff.


Offline MakeItRain

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1406 on: January 18, 2021, 01:27:09 PM »
Serves Tennessee, fans & admin, right for that last crap show of a search. Phil Fulmer has always been a dickbag.

Offline Shooter Jones

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1407 on: January 19, 2021, 08:32:47 AM »
So Pruitt has the same lawyer Beatty had and sounds like Tenn will be trying to get out of any money owed in the contract like KU did, should be fun to follow.

Offline Shooter Jones

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1408 on: January 19, 2021, 12:30:04 PM »
"Tennessee put cash in McDonald's bags to hand out to recruits on visits."

LOL. Very jelly

Offline MadCat

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1409 on: January 19, 2021, 01:23:48 PM »
Don't eat all your McDonald's in one place, y'hear?

Offline MakeItRain

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1410 on: January 19, 2021, 07:44:33 PM »
"Tennessee put cash in McDonald's bags to hand out to recruits on visits."

LOL. Very jelly

Why? They did that crap and are still and have been horrible, by any standard. I'd be furious if we were cheating and that's the end result.

Offline sonofdaxjones

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1411 on: January 19, 2021, 10:58:28 PM »
Only the stupidest kind of stupid cheats in that fashion.

Clearly they don't have a network of (non McDonald's) bag men like most of the SEC schools that are any good do.

The smart schools have a standard of deniability that is awe inspiring.   Payments to recruits are never handled by anyone on the coaching staff, few on the coaching staff even know the full details. 





Offline Shooter Jones

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1412 on: January 20, 2021, 09:34:26 AM »
"Tennessee put cash in McDonald's bags to hand out to recruits on visits."

LOL. Very jelly

Why? They did that crap and are still and have been horrible, by any standard. I'd be furious if we were cheating and that's the end result.

Because they're trying? I like effort. And it's resulted in Top 10-20 classes every year, add a couple pieces and the right coach can win big right away.

Offline MakeItRain

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1413 on: January 20, 2021, 05:30:44 PM »
"Tennessee put cash in McDonald's bags to hand out to recruits on visits."

LOL. Very jelly

Why? They did that crap and are still and have been horrible, by any standard. I'd be furious if we were cheating and that's the end result.

Because they're trying? I like effort. And it's resulted in Top 10-20 classes every year, add a couple pieces and the right coach can win big right away.

They're going to go on probation tho.

Offline Shooter Jones

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1414 on: January 20, 2021, 07:43:37 PM »
"Tennessee put cash in McDonald's bags to hand out to recruits on visits."

LOL. Very jelly

Why? They did that crap and are still and have been horrible, by any standard. I'd be furious if we were cheating and that's the end result.

Because they're trying? I like effort. And it's resulted in Top 10-20 classes every year, add a couple pieces and the right coach can win big right away.

They're going to go on probation tho.

Yeah, most likely.

Do we have a thread about violations? Seems like the SEC would be at the top, but also aren't we weirdly high up on the penalized list?

Offline wiley

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Offline PurpleOil

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1416 on: January 21, 2021, 04:47:31 PM »
https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3270084/tennessees-entire-roster-is-entering-the-transfer-portal-faster-than-i-can-type

Should be try and purchase...er... I mean recruit and use any of those guys?



Also, straight from that article,

Quote
I long for the day when Tennessee will simply not be the laughingstock of college football. Unfortunately, that day is not today.

Vols fans, trust us from watching little brother to the east of us. It could get much much worse.

Offline nicname

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If there was a gif of nicname thwarting the attempted-flag-taker and then gesturing him to suck it, followed by motioning for all of Hilton Shelter to boo him louder, it'd be better than that auburn gif.

Offline 'taterblast

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1418 on: October 11, 2021, 12:39:52 PM »
oh hell yeah copy and paste that crap

Offline nicname

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1419 on: October 11, 2021, 12:41:13 PM »
I got no sub. Just had to post the pic. Who got a sub?
If there was a gif of nicname thwarting the attempted-flag-taker and then gesturing him to suck it, followed by motioning for all of Hilton Shelter to boo him louder, it'd be better than that auburn gif.

Offline sonofdaxjones

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1420 on: October 11, 2021, 01:03:25 PM »
Every single one of the people that Currie pursued was superior to what Fat Phil ultimately brought in and what ultimately got Fat Phil and the whole gang fired and Tennessee football likely put on probation.

None of what the Pruitt and staff were doing has a single ounce of air cover from NIL.  1000% blatant NCAA violations and possible LOIC findings.

Offline wiley

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1421 on: October 11, 2021, 01:08:41 PM »
I didn't realize Clay Travis spearheaded a lot of the outcry and posted JCurries phone number on social media.
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Offline Houstoncat93

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1422 on: October 11, 2021, 01:20:31 PM »
oh hell yeah copy and paste that crap

Editor’s note: This story is part of the Secrets of the Coaching Carousel series exploring unique aspects of college football coaching changes and more.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — They didn’t carry pitchforks as they descended upon the Tennessee football facility, but they came bearing megaphones, signs and paint. The fans who could make it on this particular Sunday afternoon made their indignation known. Others used keystrokes to lob grenades, using their social media feeds to amplify anger and convince more fans to join the fray.

By nightfall, rabid fans, politicians and influential donors had changed the course of the program they all loved.

Tennessee had to change its plans. In an unprecedented move, it tore up a signed deal with its brand new coach and started over. Then, the university president fired the man in charge of the coaching search and handed the reins to a beloved former coach who had been pushed out less than 10 years earlier.

Frustrated fans viewed it as taking back control of their program after a decade of poor decisions compounded upon one another to bury a once-proud program into an ever-deepening hole. Others saw it as mob rule overtaking college athletics with dangerous implications moving forward in more than just sports.

Coaching searches are all crazy in their own ways, but Tennessee’s 2017 search set the standard for madness, and 8,000 pages of documents and internal communications released months later offered unique insight into the frenzied, disorganized process that ended with more turnover on Rocky Top and opened the eyes of coaches and administrators across college sports.

The Athletic spoke to key figures involved and reviewed documents to offer a new look into the wildest coaching search in modern college football history. “Every moment that went by, the hysteria got worse,” one source said.

Here is how it unfolded:

Sunday, Nov. 12: Butch Jones is fired
The Vols entered 2016 favored to win the East Division and play for an SEC title for the first time since 2007. And after beating Georgia and Florida in the same season for the first time since 2004, reaching Atlanta seemed like a layup. Instead, they coughed up the East with a loss to South Carolina and finished the regular season with a loss to Vanderbilt that cost them a trip to the Sugar Bowl.

Butch Jones, however, argued his team already had done something more important that season. “They’ve won the biggest championship — and that’s the championship of life,” Jones said.

Months later, he angered fans again on national signing day as he introduced the last class he would sign at Tennessee.

“The only five-star that we even concern ourselves with is a five-star heart,” Jones said, another eye-roll-inducing moment for a fan base frustrated with Jones’ off-field approach and mic-check moments.

The coach had signed plenty of actual five stars. His 2014 class ranked No. 7 nationally, and his 2015 class was No. 4. But commensurate on-field results were nowhere to be found, and combined with ugly midseason exits from NFL-bound players like Jalen Hurd and Preston Williams, that fed a belief Jones was failing to get the most out of that talent.

The bitter taste of a painful offseason only worsened in 2017, as the losses piled up in what became the worst season in program history. Winless in SEC play, Jones was fired 10 games in by first-year athletic director John Currie, who named defensive line coach and former Michigan head coach Brady Hoke to the interim job. Jones finished 34-17 (14-24 in the SEC) through five seasons at Tennessee.

“We need to hire someone that understands the magnitude of being the football coach at the University of Tennessee,” said Currie, adding that he was looking for a coach “with the highest integrity and character, with the skills and vision to propel Tennessee to championships.”

Stakeholders involved in the search almost immediately authorized Currie to offer the next Tennessee coach up to $10 million per year, sources told The Athletic. That number leaked quickly to agents, including CAA superagent Jimmy Sexton. Peyton Manning was among those offering counsel to Currie and spoke with multiple head coaching candidates on the phone during the eventual hiring process. “I don’t think you’d ever get down the road with someone if (Manning) were totally against it,” a source said.

And Currie opted not to use a search firm, a choice that would have massive ramifications later on.

Saturday, Nov. 18: Jon Gruden rumors, or “Grumors,” emerge
For almost a decade and through multiple coaching searches, Gruden had been the White Whale to Tennessee fans’ Captain Ahab. For many, it became a full-blown obsession.

Every Monday night, they could turn on their TV and see Gruden, known lover of the state of Tennessee, manning the “Monday Night Football” booth. The frequent chatter earned its own name: Grumors.

How real were any of Tennessee’s dalliances with Gruden through the years? That answer depends on who’s asked, but when a household name and Super Bowl champion is the starting point for many fans, anyone other than Nick Saban or Dabo Swinney is a step down in their minds.

“Tennessee fans believe in Santa Claus,” as one source put it.

Except now Santa, in the middle of a Tennessee coaching search, had been spotted in Knoxville.

Calhoun’s, a local barbecue chain that hosts the weekly Tennessee coaches show and frequently caters the university’s football events, tweeted from its popular account that Gruden had been spotted eating dinner with Manning in their riverside location in the shadow of Neyland Stadium.

It was just a Grumor. The restaurant later apologized, but the apology never goes as viral as the offense. The damage was done, and to Currie, mum was now the word as the search began in full swing.

Wednesday, Nov. 22: The shadow searches are underway
Currie texted Tennessee chancellor Beverly Davenport, as he often would during the search, to keep her abreast of the latest developments: “FYI — there is a media report that we have offered Chip Kelly — it is a complete fabrication planted by his agent (Trace Armstrong) to incite competition with other schools (and) drive up his price and perceived desirability.”

A few things had been happening behind the scenes. Currie had met in-person with Kelly in early November, but Currie did not offer him the job. He also visited with then-Central Florida coach Scott Frost and spoke with North Carolina State coach Dave Doeren. Former NFL head coach Jeff Fisher called Currie and pitched himself for the job, as did Hoke, the interim head coach. Currie did not talk directly to Purdue coach Jeff Brohm, though others on the search committee reached out to Brohm and pushed for him to become a candidate.

Hoke’s all-caps text incantations from those days remain the stuff of legend.

“JOHN I HOPE YOU DO KNOW I WOULD LIKE TO BE YOUR HEAD FOOTBALL COACH I DO KNOW THE ENVIRONMENT WE LIVE IN AND WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE AT TENNESSEE!” Hoke wrote to Currie.

Meanwhile, others in Currie’s periphery, including influential donor Charlie Anderson, were doing their own outreach as sort of a “shadow” search, two sources told The Athletic. Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and his agent were approached during the shadow search.

And former Vols head coach Philip Fulmer was exerting his influence behind the scenes, attempting to “advise” Davenport and ultimately wrestle control away from Currie — who served as Tennessee’s executive assistant athletic director when Fulmer was fired in November 2008. Fulmer, too, was making calls to candidates before Currie did.

“There was, in my opinion, a group working to discredit John Currie,” a source said.

That source said at least one head coach who was interviewed for the Tennessee job said he wouldn’t take it because of Fulmer’s meddling and the feeling that, with Fulmer pulling strings, the new coach wouldn’t get a fair chance to succeed.

Saturday, Nov. 25: Dan Mullen takes the Florida job
Currie had spoken to then-Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen throughout the week and had been in close contact with one of Mullen’s representatives, Clint Dowdle. Mullen wrote in a text message to both that he’d spoken to Manning on Friday and was looking forward to meeting with Currie on Sunday.

That was the plan … until Currie was informed that Mullen would be taking the Florida job. He was driving when he found out, so he shifted gears and then directed his car toward Columbus, Ohio, to meet with Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano.

That night, Currie also sent Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy a text, asking if he had a minute to chat.

Early Sunday, Nov. 26: Tennessee, Greg Schiano sign a memorandum of understanding
By midnight, Currie had his man in Schiano and was working with Schiano’s agent to nail down the details. At 12:32 a.m., he sent a text message to Davenport: “Have a tentative deal in place awaiting word from you/Prez. Will be up early. Call whenever. Thank you.”

Currie texted Davenport a few times in the morning, asking if she had yet spoken to university president Joe DiPietro about Schiano. She responded that DiPietro originally said he could talk to her at 10 a.m. She tried to call him and he didn’t answer.

Currie asked: “Any update?”

Davenport replied: “Joe has gone to Mass and will be back in an hour.”

Currie wrote back: “Good. Schiano is a devout Catholic.”

At 10:39 a.m., Davenport asked Currie to send “a number.” That day, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding, two people with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed to The Athletic. Tennessee hoped to announce Schiano as its new head coach that evening. Schiano then walked into a team meeting in Columbus, as the Buckeyes prepared to face Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game the next weekend.

Then, everything imploded.


(Matthew Emmons / USA Today)
Later Sunday, Nov. 26: ‘It felt like a death blow’
“I got a text from someone in the know and she told me she knew it was Schiano. So I had told my friends and they were all freaking out,” said Jon Reed, a local radio host at Fox Sports Knoxville who also operates a podcast and an online community that’s garnered attention on campus in recent years. “So when it came out on Sunday around 1 or 2 o’clock, it was just kind of a numb feeling. As someone who is both a Tennessee fan and someone who works in the market, it felt like a death blow.”

It wasn’t just about Schiano. Paired with six losing seasons in the previous decade capped by the first winless SEC campaign in program history, handing over the program to a coach with a middling career record — due to a total rebuild at Rutgers — for many felt like a step in the wrong direction.

“Time after time, it seems they have thought they can find somebody who they hope can be a success, instead of somebody who’s guaranteed to be a success,” Clay Travis, a lifelong Tennessee fan who now operates the website Outkick.com, said in a recent interview with The Athletic. “What Tennessee fans are just fed up with is that the program deserves better than the choices that have been given to the program.”

Lane Kiffin inherited a program on mostly solid ground after Fulmer was pushed out in late 2008, but Kiffin left for USC after one season. Kiffin’s dream job opening a year after he arrived in the SEC was bad luck, but then-Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton elected to hire Kiffin over TCU coach Gary Patterson.

Rather than lean on an interim coach after Kiffin’s mid-January exit, the Vols rushed to hire Derek Dooley, the son of legendary Georgia head coach Vince Dooley. Derek Dooley, whose career record was 17-20, finished his career on Rocky Top with zero winning seasons and one recruiting class that signed zero offensive linemen. He ceded to Jones, and the 2017 disaster made it clear change was needed.

But many fans felt it was the wrong change.

“When you run a hire out that has zero connection to the area (or) the fans, and just seems like it was a hand-picked person from (Cleveland Browns owner and Tennessee super booster) Jimmy Haslam, who was almost going to hire (Schiano) at the Browns, it just seemed like enough was enough,” Reed said.

Frustrated and helpless but wanting to do something, a couple of friends texted Reed and said they were headed to Neyland Stadium to dump their Tennessee gear outside the stadium. A symbolic gesture, sure, but one they hoped was cathartic and could ease the sting of the Schiano hire they deemed unworthy.

Reed’s friends asked if he could tweet out their plans to gather at the stadium’s plaza outside Gate 21 to see if others wanted to join. He did, and other angry fans joined in. Many more than expected. Suddenly, Reed found himself as an unwitting ringleader.

“They were looking to me to have plans. I was like, ‘I didn’t plan this. You guys asked me to come,’” Reed said.

The group marched the half-mile to the team facility yelling and chanting. Someone brought a bullhorn, and people took turns giving angry speeches. When it was Reed’s turn, he told the crowd that people were going to judge Tennessee fans for their actions that day and their actions would be viewed by many as railroading a good man in Schiano, even if their intentions were to bring in a candidate that more closely reflected what they wanted in their program.

“It was more about Tennessee fans letting their voices be heard by the administration,” said Reed, who channeled his love of pro wrestling and ripped up a Tennessee shirt at the end of his speech. “If the worst thing that came from it was that the president and the chancellor and the AD and the boosters were embarrassed by it, I thought that was going to be good enough.”

It did far more.

A campaign on a much larger scale was taking place online. Angry Tennessee fans were flooding social media with their frustration, and that included Travis.


“Social media is beyond brutal,” Davenport texted Currie that afternoon.

“Working on it,” he replied.

Travis said the Schiano hire “was gonna be a non-starter for a lot of people.”

“This was an Ohio State defensive coordinator who got torched a lot. He’s a retread,” Travis said. “Unlikable guy, according to many different people who have been affiliated with him in either the NFL or college. Not the kind of guy who has any experience in the South at all, or understands in any significant way what it means to be the most famous person in the state of Tennessee, because that’s what the Tennessee football head coach is.”

Later that Sunday, Travis also tweeted out Currie’s personal cellphone number, prompting angry fans to flood Currie’s phone with calls and texts.

“I think when you make a decision like that, the public should have an ability to respond to you,” Travis said. “There are certain jobs that are part of a public trust in my mind, and one of them would be head coach at Tennessee. One of them would be an athletic director at Tennessee.”

Travis says he doesn’t regret what he did then but wouldn’t do it again. “I’m in a different spot now,” he said. “Four years later, I feel like it might be punching down for me to go after an athletic director in a way that maybe wasn’t then.”

Travis’ first tweet regarding Schiano and many subsequent tweets and posts on his website also attempted to link Schiano directly to the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal at Penn State.

Former Nittany Lions assistant Mike McQueary had testified in an insurance lawsuit that another assistant, Tom Bradley, told him Schiano reported seeing Sandusky “doing something to a boy in the shower” in the early 1990s, according to court documents that were unsealed in July 2016.

Schiano denied the claims. Bradley also denied the event in McQueary’s testimony. It was hearsay; Ohio State had vetted Schiano, as had the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before it, and as did Tennessee after, sources said.

But for fans already upset that their athletic director had missed on Mullen and other big-name hires, mentioning the worst scandal in college sports history was more than enough. In addition to Schiano’s perceived poor on-field fit, it further fueled Tennessee fans’ anger,

“To see stuff written, No. 1 that is totally untrue, and No. 2 is really nasty, that’s not nice for anybody (to see), especially my family,” Schiano told The Athletic last year after being hired as the Rutgers head coach for a second time. “Looking back, I think God has a way of getting you where He wants you. Sometimes it may be a little painful, but I don’t doubt for a second that (Rutgers) is where I’m supposed to be.”

Politicians from Gov. Bill Lee to state representatives Eddie Smith and Jason Zachary voiced their opposition to the hire, with some alluding to the Penn State allegations more explicitly than others.


The Rock, an iconic, frequently repainted campus landmark and canvas of free expression across the street from Stokely Hall where many football players live, loudly proclaimed “Schiano Covered Up Child Rape At Penn State.”

“I thought that was too far,” Reed said. “I think most people kind of threw gasoline on that fire because it was the one thing that got the attention of a lot of people and state legislators and people in government that apparently made phone calls and threatened to pull funding and all those things.”

Meanwhile, fans had finished their campus march and gathered on the steps of the Anderson Training Center, the 145,000-square-foot team facility that also houses the athletic administration offices. At its early evening peak, the crowd grew to about 150 people, knowing that those inside — mostly Currie — could hear them. Others, including fan-favorite receiver Jauan Jennings, drove by and honked their horns.

Instead of announcing Schiano as its new head coach Sunday night as planned, Tennessee suddenly backed out of the hire. Hours after the hiring was leaked, it was undone.

The reversal was unheard of in college sports, and it reverberated throughout the industry. At a popular intercollegiate athletics conference in New York City the next week, it was the main topic of conversation. The athletic directors in attendance feared that an internet mob could be weaponized against him or her in the future.

Schiano says that he doesn’t remember exactly how he found out that the deal had fallen apart, just the feeling — that he’d gone into the team meeting in Columbus, and by the time he was done around 4 p.m. — it was all over.

“It really wasn’t a lot of fun,” Schiano said. “But the good thing is we had the Big Ten championship game to prepare for, and that’s exactly what I did. We went and played really good defense against Wisconsin and won. Sometimes, it’s a blessing in disguise, right? Just to get lost in that.”

So Currie had to restart his search. By the next morning, he and Gundy were back in contact and making new plans to meet.

Tuesday, Nov. 28: Mike Gundy is out
In addition to trying to hire a coach, Currie was trying to appease a university administration spooked by the backlash to his Schiano offer. He felt it was important to move quickly. Currie flew to Dallas on Tuesday and met with Gundy for a few hours at the Dallas Fort-Worth airport Grand Hyatt.

Currie made Gundy an offer, which he mulled for a few hours. In the meantime, news leaked about the two sides meeting, and fans worked themselves into a frenzy. That evening, Gundy called Currie back and said no to Tennessee, opting to stay put at his alma mater. Gundy then received a $675,000 raise from the Cowboys’ administration, bumping up his annual salary to $5 million per year.

After the call from Gundy, Currie exchanged a series of messages with North Carolina State head coach Dave Doeren’s agent, Jordan Bazant. When Currie told Bazant that Gundy was out, Bazant wrote, “Let’s get this done.” Currie flew to Raleigh late that night to meet with Doeren on Wednesday. Pressure mounted to get a coach — one who would say yes — as soon as possible.

And Currie began running into problems around the first-ever December signing period; coaches had recruiting visits scheduled that they couldn’t suspiciously cancel. That affected availability. (Doeren had a visit with a recruit planned for Wednesday night, which ultimately impacted the timeline of the search.) Anything that slowed down any part of the process added stress and fed into the perception that Tennessee couldn’t get out of its own way.

Thursday, Nov. 30: The Wi-Fi goes out
Doeren was “fired up” about the possibility of coaching at Tennessee, Bazant wrote to Currie on Thursday morning. About 40 minutes later, without receiving a response, Bazant added that he really needed to hear from Currie soon.

Meanwhile, on social media and in Currie’s inbox, Tennessee fans expressed their displeasure with Doeren this time — he’d been considered on the hot seat at NC State just the season before, was this coach really good enough for Tennessee? — and at least one person involved in the search process wondered if there might be yet another full-on fan revolt if he were hired.

From Raleigh, Currie boarded a cross-country Delta flight to Los Angeles with plans to meet Washington State head coach Mike Leach at the Ritz-Carlton in Marina del Rey. There was no Wi-Fi available on the flight.

No one at Tennessee could reach him, and the messages between high-level administrators grew increasingly frantic and frustrated throughout the day. By the time Currie checked in to tell Davenport he’d met with Leach and it had gone well, she had ordered him to return to Knoxville and told him that he could not offer the job.

NC State had announced a new five-year extension for Doeren.

“I am very sorry for the stress I caused by the (Wi-Fi) outage on the Delta flight,” Currie wrote in an email to Davenport and others. “I had every intention of being able to communicate and that we could still get DD deal done while I was traveling but without an immediate answer, the negative social media assaults against (Doeren) and the media news of their negotiating with NCSU, I was concerned that I needed to be in position to meet with other candidates, including Coach Leach who was in LA recruiting.”

Davenport responded that the first she had heard of the meeting with Leach was when Currie landed in Los Angeles, after “six hours” of trying and failing to contact Currie. “Because of the confusion from earlier in the day with the other candidate (Doeren), I asked you not to pursue any discussions about employment with any additional candidates.” Davenport asked Currie to meet her at 9 a.m.

Friday, Dec. 1: Currie is out as athletic director; Fulmer is in
Just eight months after being hired, Currie was fired, and Fulmer was a natural pick to replace him as athletic director. Officially, he’d been working in an advisory role, but he had the name recognition, trust and confidence from those wearing orange that he wanted what was best for Tennessee as badly as they did. To those in Currie’s orbit, Fulmer had been puppeteering the move all along.

Fulmer took the driver’s seat of the search and pursued sit-downs with three key targets: Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. Pruitt boarded a Tennessee-provided plane to New York City to meet with Fulmer at the sport’s annual season-ending run of banquets and events. Mississippi State also had expressed interest in Pruitt in the weeks since Alabama’s 11-1 regular season ended with an Iron Bowl loss, but Pruitt’s focus was on the Tennessee job.


(Kim Klement / USA Today)
Thursday, Dec. 7: Pruitt receives an offer
Fulmer circled back for second interviews with his leading trio, meeting with Pruitt in Dallas before extending an offer.

“You go through the process of interviews and background checks, and you are trying to check all the boxes to make the right hire,” Fulmer told The Athletic in 2018. “He passed them on all accounts.”

The opening chapters of Tennessee’s search were unpredictable and wild. With the process largely simplified after Currie’s mid-search firing, Fulmer worked quickly. Within a week, he made a hire. A month after taking the Tennessee job, Pruitt helped the Crimson Tide capture the national title, his second as a coordinator, following up a 2013 title at Florida State.

Pruitt’s tenure reached a crescendo by closing the 2019 season with a six-game winning streak, capped by a comeback victory over Indiana in the Gator Bowl to finish 8-5.

“This decade is going to be the decade of the Vols. You got me?” Pruitt told his team in the locker room after the game.

Fulmer rewarded Pruitt with a raise and extension after the season, and at a recruiting event in February, Fulmer told a room full of boosters, “The Vols are back. And, before long, we’ll be taking a bite out of everybody we play’s ass.”

Like Jones, the bottom fell out on the program in a single season. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the sport that spring, and Tennessee managed just three wins in that fall’s 10-game, all-SEC schedule.

In November 2020, a whistleblower alerted university administration to rampant violations within the football program. By January, Pruitt was fired for cause along with two assistants and nearly all the recruiting staff. Fulmer also retired but is due $37,500 per month ($450,000 annually) through the end of 2023 — the same financial buyout agreement his contract demanded if he were fired.

“Greg Schiano was the wrong fit for Tennessee. That doesn’t mean Jeremy Pruitt was the right fit,” Travis said. “There were a lot of people I would imagine that Tennessee could have hired that would have worked on a better level than Jeremy Pruitt.”

But Tennessee’s wild 2017 search ended with Pruitt, and a coaching search unlike any other ended the same way each of its searches has concluded since Fulmer was pushed out as coach — with the Vols, once again looking for a savior to pick up the pieces. (This time, with an NCAA investigation hanging over the search.)

Chancellor Donde Plowman, who replaced Davenport, entrusted new athletic director Danny White with the latest search. Together, they waded through a thinned candidate pool and entrusted the future of the Tennesee program to Josh Heupel, who had spent three seasons working under White at UCF.

Now, these three new leaders must deliver, the latest in a long line of caretakers tasked with returning a once-proud program to its winning ways.

If they can’t? Well, there’s no doubt they’ll hear about it.

Offline sonofdaxjones

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1423 on: October 11, 2021, 01:50:02 PM »
LOL at Clay Travis. 

Currie literally had a cadre of experienced P5 coaches on the hook, all with head coaching experience and they ended up with . . . Jeremy Pruitt.

Offline 'taterblast

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Re: Can Vol fans get a wiki on why Currie is a horrible hire at Tennessee?
« Reply #1424 on: October 11, 2021, 01:51:36 PM »
thank you Houstoncat93