When did you know Dooley was not and could not be the guy?

When I heard the name and had to turn on my computer to fire up Google

 

The excuses bothered me too. Yes, this team is young. Yes, the injury bug has hit you hard. Yes, people didn't expect a lot the first two seasons. The way the team regressed from 2010 to 2011 was awful.

The "senior leadership" excuse is bs too. You've got Gerald Jones recruiting for Trooper, Moore making it clear he's here to go to the NFL and a bunch of other disgruntled seniors that are playing for their 3rd coach in as many years. Aside from Reveiz, none of them gave a shit about anything other than getting a degree or an NFL paycheck.

You don't have any leaders on the roster, Derek? Find one. Start ****ing walk-ons until you get the point across. Instead, he kissed Da'Rick's feet and let any credibility he had with the players get destroyed.

 

I've never been big on the hire but I felt compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt since it was a little messy when he arrived. This years Florida game was the absolute last straw for me. It's weird though. I don't wish any ill will towards the man, he's just not good enough plain and simple. Fans are usually ready to throw their HC's into the fire at this point, but I don't feel that way for some reason...at least not yet.

 

Georgia 2011

 

The day he was hired and I had to google him to figure out who he was; after looking at his record at La Tech I knew...

 

Counzo Martin hasn't really helped him out on the excuse front either.

 

When I heard the name I was like JT5, who? Vince Dooley did not even register at the time.

When you have to google a guy to find his W/L resume its never an easy feeling. I worried about what UT could get at the time but never dreamed that could be the best. After the dust settled I was willing to give him a chance. (didn't have much of a choice) I thought at worst he would get us past the AA' cloud and fill the roster back up for a better hire later. (That is still a possibility)

Being a "true" fan I wanted him to win no matter where he came from or who his daddy is. I started to get bothered after the UGA game last year and how unprepared we were with plenty of time to focus on them. Later in the year we wet the bed against a turrible UK team and the words "quit", and "didn't care about a 3rd tier bowl game" started to pop up. The loss was enough but this sent it over the edge. Then came the mass exit of coaches. Several of witch did not seem to be the real problem.

Knowing he was not gonna get axed in the offseason (short of a bad Harley adventure) I decided to lower my expecations for him and wait for him to coach his way out of or back into a job. 5 games later he is closer to the door than a contract extension. While my confidence in Dooley ever winning anything worthy of note at UT is shot, I just can't get it out of my head that he finds a way to win 8 games this year, beat another team in a bowl game that doesn't really matter and makes it through to another season.

 

No he hasn't.

And while basketball is a different animal. CM jumped in grab the situation by the neck and took off. All the while not leaning on excuses and reasons for why the season started off rough but focused on the moment. Dooley walked into a mess and everyone knew that. Reminding the fan base and the players after every practice and game did not serve him well. Whether it was the truth or not. Their approaches to the situation have been totally different IMO.

 

There's a good portion of the fanbase who deserves Dooley to keep his job, the three offensive stars to go pro, and UT to roll out a 4-8 next season.

 

I gave up after the Vanderbilt game last year. We won the game but Dooley's play calling and game management was so awful that I had lost any hope of Dooley being anything more than a mid-major coach. Kentucky just solidified it for me.

 

That's 100% where I'm coming from as well.

Should Kippy have been named interim? For right or wrong, yes.. but he wasn't.
And the reality was that nobody (big name) was going to jump ship right at NSD.. except for somebody along the lines of USC or Texas, IMO...

So.. Dooley inherited a mess. And yes, he came from a BS conference with a crappy record... but LaTech has always sucked eggs and traditionally hasn't had the athletes to compete with the big boys.. so my feeling was that Dooley shouldn't have been named coach because he was really an unknown entity more than anything else.. It's hard for ME to judge a coach based on a school that's been a traditional doormat in a doormat conference (then again, maybe that's why Dooley was there in the first place? I dunno).
.. I hearken back to that LSU game that got dorked up. That was a game we should have won. It was enough for me to tell myself that in spite of the dork up, maybe Dooley could manage it if he gets the right personnel...

I wasn't 100% convinced after the Kentucky game last year.. maybe 90+% convinced at that point. But that game led right into Year 3... and the florida game.. No excuse to lose that game. NONE.

...and now I look at LaTech and see what they're doing?...


In my world, Dooley is no longer an "unknown entity".. Everything is perfectly clear to me now.

 

Not a lot of Sunshine Pumpers on The 8th today, or any day for that matter. Which is refreshing.

I wish no ill will toward Dools. Just want him to go. He's played UT as a fool enough at this point.

 

The LSU game was more a combo of a little luck, a terrible Tiger offense, and a good gameplan from Wilcox.

 

If Simms puts just a little more air under that out and up to Jones late in the 4th we win.

 

With a whopping 200 yards of offense. The four LSU turnovers are what kept us alive. That and our defense keeping them out of the endzone for 59:30 or so.

And the guy responsible, Wilcox, left for a job that would pretty much be considered a demotion at any other point in UT's history.

 

yeah, LSU was down that day.. but had we won it, under whatever circumstances, it would have been the signature win..
That game then becomes the one everybody points to and arguably leads to calls for Dooley to 'have more time'...

Look at how much yardage Fulmer got for winning the NC.... that was the signature win of wins....

So I'll call it Divine Providence that Dools lost that LSU game..

but that's just me..

 

I still have a little hope left but I first started having serious doubts at his introductory press conference when he talked about his recruiting and staff philosophies. Then I had even more doubt after the 13 men on the field, that kind of stuff goes all the way to the head coach regardless.

 

It may not be an easy feeling, but it doesn't mean it is a bad hire. I didn't know much about Cuonzo, but I understood the hire after about 5 minutes of research. I had heard the name but wasn't up to speed on Brady Hoke when Michigan hired him, but it didn't take long to figure out what sold him. We were in a tough situation making a home run hire was difficult--rumors surrounding pay limitations and control restrictions still bother me-- but that didn't mean we had to sweep the basement floors, either. There were people at lower tier schools building programs that could have been interested. There were coordinators from top tier staffs that should have gotten calls. And if none of that worked, there was Kippy, a guy with vastly superior qualifications than Dooley, who could have at the very least held the interim spot until we figured it out.

Instead, we hired the guy who used to make Saban's travel arrangements who has approximately the same cv as Gary Anderson because he said "britches" at some point during his interview.

 

Day 1.

 

Of the rest of our lives...