Seventeen Days and Still No Offensive Coordinator For the Tennessee Volunteers
For the second straight year, the Vols have embarrassed themselves in an attempt to hire a coach.
Frequent Tri-Cities Sports NOW with Marky Billson guest Caleb Calhoun, generally heard Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. on 1420 WEMB Sports Radio, has a must-read piece on allfortennessee.com considering the Volunteers’ struggles to find a new offensive coordinator.
His reasons?
1. Head coach Jeremy Pruitt wants to focus on the early recruiting period first.
2. Power players blocked Hugh Freeze’s hire.
3. No quality coaches want to join the staff.
4. The top candidates are still working.
5. The Vols may have their candidate but they are still negotiating.
But:
1. Early recruiting won’t be enhanced if players don’t know who the staff is going to be.
2. Freeze has more upside potential at Liberty, potentially the Baptist Notre Dame, than taking orders from someone younger than he is.
3. Five reasons for this, lettered A-E, follow.
4. The recent success of the Cleveland Browns means they will keep Freddie Kitchens as their offensive coordinator, so the idea of leaving Baker Mayfield and the NFL for Jarrett Guarantano and the minor leagues is laughable.
5. Are we supposed to believe after hearing the inside skinny on so many candidates prior all these leaking sources have dried up?
So, how about the third reason? Why wouldn’t quality coaches want to join the Tennessee Volunteers?
A. Good coordinators don’t want to be muzzled from talking to the media.
Pruitt’s “One Voice” philosophy of media coverage; that HE will be the only member of the coaching staff to talk to the media, speaks of playing cover up. It speaks of a man so insecure in his job he fears a conflicting report from an assistant who might not be on the same page as he is, or an assistant with a better personality than his showing him up.
If I am an up and coming coach with ambitions of becoming a head coach some day, how am I supposed to improve my lot to become a head coach if I am not allowed to use the media to showcase myself as an assistant?
Sure, Nick Saban doesn’t allow his assistants to talk to the media. But that’s Nick Saban. That’s Alabama. They win national championships, so teams want their coaches.
The Vols aren’t going to win national championships until college football pays their players.
Frankly, in order to compete with Alabama you’re going to have to offer a different environment than what stuffy Saban provides.
B. Quarterback Jarrett Guarantano ain’t all that.
In 18 starts Guarantano has thrown for 200 or more yards only four times despite the fact the Vols have trailed so often in his career.
Now combine that with the statistically worst rushing attack in the SEC last season and the Vols appear to be more of a graveyard than an opportunity for an offensive coordinator with other options.
Why else would, say, a Mike Yurcich not come to Tennessee? If he earned the salary of former offensive coordinator Tyson Helton he’d earn $400,000 more in Knoxville than in Stillwater.
There are the reports Yurcich wishes to stay loyal to head coach Mike Gundy, who hired him out of Division II. But it is probably more likely Yurcich feels his long term success will come in the offense-friendly Big 12.
The Cowboys averaged 45 points a game in 2017. The Vols averaged half that this season.
Realistically, the odds are an offensive coordinator will be more successful at Oklahoma State than Tennessee.
C. Tennessee is shooting too high.
Consider the case of Dan Enos. It was likely Alabama offensive coordinator Mike Locksley was going to get a head coaching job. He wound up nabbing the job at Maryland.
Anyone could then see that Enos, Alabama’s quarterbacks coach, would be in line to get Locksley’s old job. The idea of Enos coming to Tennessee rested solely on Locksley NOT getting a head coaching job.
It’s one thing to cover all your bases. It’s another to pursue a long shot.
But it’s a pattern. Clemson’s quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter was reportedly an early candidate, but it seemed likely if Tony Elliott would get a head coaching job the former Tigers quarterback would just take over Elliott’s old role as an offensive coordinator under Dabo Sweeney.
Whatever happened to Streeter? Is he still a candidate, because it seems Elliott isn’t going anywhere.
If Streeter is, it makes no sense he wouldn’t be announced now with Elliott likely staying since a Streeter hire would provide a spark to the early signing period. There’s nothing to be gained for either party to hold off an announcement.
More likely, Streeter feels, like Yurcich, he has a better chance at long term success staying at Clemson and eventually becoming the Tigers’ offensive coordinator than going to Tennessee. Who wouldn’t rather work with Trevor Lawrence than Guarantano?
D- Did Tennessee limit itself as to who they could hire after Greg Schiano?
Freeze left Ole Miss on probation and was known to enjoy ladies of the evening while openly speaking of his Christianity. Houston offensive coordinator Kendall Briles has been named in a lawsuit against Baylor for his part in the program’s sexual assault scandal.
Schiano, originally to be hired as the Vols head football coach 13 months ago, was denied the position after a fan revolt supposedly motivated by Mike McQueary accusing Schiano of looking the other way during the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State.
So the hire of either Freeze or Briles would make Tennessee appear to be hypocrites.
It used to be said the reason schools like Baylor, who suffered 13 straight losing seasons from 1996–2009, couldn’t win were their academic restrictions. Could the reason now that Tennessee can’t win be the MORAL restrictions placed on the program for the reasons given for not hiring Schiano?
This is a fan base that spends its Wednesday evenings in church and state where a restaurant selling beer is considered controversial in many municipalities and counties. Precedent has been set and the program is still smarting over the allegations hostess honeys exhibited less-than-virtuous behavior to potential recruits during the Lane Kiffin era.
True, this is the same fan base willing to look the other way concerning the testimony given against A.J. Johnson in his rape trial, taking in to account only the final verdict.
But the failure to hire Schiano has likely now meant future Vols coaching candidates must pass a morality check.
Why couldn’t Pruitt figure out a potential Freeze or Briles hire would simply be a bad look, anyway?
E- Yesterday’s program has too high expectations.
The Tennessee Volunteers have not won their conference in 20 years. There are 65 teams playing Power Five football. Forty-two of them have won a conference championship since the Vols have.
Whoever becomes the Vols’ offensive coordinator will be the fourth coach in this position in four years.
A potential coach sees where Butch Jones won 18 games in two years and then was fired after a bad year.
Sure, that’s Butch Jones. Can’t count to 14. Played Brett Kendrick with a concussion. “What do we want from our media?”
Except that Phil Fulmer won 19 games in two years and then was fired after a bad season. Except that John Majors was fired after 16 years because an interim coach won three games. Except that Bill Battle never had a losing record and was fired. Except Derek Dooley- YES DEREK DOOLEY- was given only three years to overcome inherited probation.
Granted, pressure and scrutiny is on every college football coach. But when the majority of teams playing in Power Five conferences have won titles since the Vols have, and the fan base still expects 1998 results, a coach can’t be blamed for believing he could find more stable and successful landing spots.
It seems as if Rush Propst may actually be a viable candidate for the Vols offensive coordinator position. If that happens, if it took more than two weeks to announce a high school coach is getting the position, then Pruitt must be looked at as someone who made an insular hire no other coach in college football, not even on the FCS level, would have made.
The Vols will be viewed as a laughingstocks around college football.
Forget Propst’s shady past. Even Furman made George Quarles serve a one-year apprenticeship as tight ends coach before promoting him to offensive coordinator.
Why not Matt Canada for Tennessee offensive coordinator? Why not Randy Sanders? Or Tee Martin, who is a year off interviewing for an NFL head coaching position? Or Trooper Taylor?
Why not Jeff Lebby, the quarterbacks coach at Central Florida who is reported to be a dark horse candidate?
Tennessee fired their athletic director last year for conducting a similar head coaching search, preventing a hire of Mike Leach.
Freeze fills the Schiano role. Numerous candidates came and went in both searches. Ultimately a secondary candidate will be hired.
What’s the difference between this search and last year’s?
Marky Billson hosts Tri-Cities Sports NOW 12–2 p.m. ET weekdays on 1420 WEMB Sports Radio. Watch his show live and archived here and here.
