There is always – and I mean ALWAYS – one coaching move that Tennessee will always lament. However, there is another decision made by the Vols that would have completely avoided the decade of frustration that beset the Tennessee’s football program for a decade.
The Vols should have hired David Cutcliffe after Lane Kiffin bolted after just one season. That is not up for debate.
I’m sure you recall that Kiffin left Tennessee in horrible shape. Most of the desirable coaches had already been hired when Kiffin left. His timing couldn’t have been worse. Still, the Vols could have salvaged the disastrous situation.
Tennessee spoke to David Cutcliffe about the vacancy that Kiffin left. Cutcliffe was the head coach at Duke at the time, but was willing to leave in order to be the head coach at Tennessee. There was even a sense in Cutcliffe’s camp that he might get the head coaching position at Tennessee after being a long-time assistant coach for the Vols. Reports indicated that Cutcliffe was assembling a coaching staff. That never happened.
Why? Tennessee’s booster(s) decided to step in with a knee-jerk decision, overruled former athletic director Mike Hamilton and hired Derek Dooley, who was floundering at Louisiana Tech. That was a very bad hire followed by two more very bad hires when the Vols named Butch Jones and Jeremy Pruitt as head coaches. That led to the decade of despair that the Vols are currently digging themselves out of.
So what would have happened had Cutcliffe, who is now the Special Assistant to the SEC Commissioner for Football Relations, gotten the job that he was teased with instead of Dooley? Let’s start with this: The Vols would absolutely not have fallen off the map as they did under the trio of dunces that led the Vols after Kiffin.
On the other side, there’s no guarantee that the Vols would have won a championship under Cutcliffe or had sustained success. I’m willing to bet on at least the latter.
Cutcliffe built a championship-caliber offense at Tennessee in 1998, so it’s reasonable to think he could have won an SEC championship for the Vols. Nevertheless, he certainly wouldn’t have let the program completely fall apart as Kiffin’s successors seemed determined to do. Cutcliffe’s resume, which includes success at Duke, is too strong to think he couldn’t have managed the Vols in 2010 and carried on a successful run in Knoxville. We’ll never know.
It does seem certain that the Vols would have had better quarterback play had Cutcliffe replaced Kiffin. Cutcliffe has coached two Super Bowl MVP’s: former Ole Miss star Eli Manning and his older brother, Peyton Manning, from Tennessee. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.
However, here is what we do know. Without Dooley, there wouldn’t have been a Jones or a Pruitt. The Vols would have been in better position to hire a coach had Cutcliffe been successful at Tennessee, which he likely would have.
It’s certainly reasonable to think that Tennessee fans, who were already tired of former coach Phillip Fulmer, wouldn’t have supported a Cutcliffe hire even if he were winning nine or 10 games a year.
Cutcliffe could have eventually been fired just like Dooley, Jones and Pruitt. However, those names would have never been associated with Tennessee football. That’s a win in my book.
The Vols were stuck with the Kiffin departure. They didn’t have to be stuck with a decade of depression.
