The Vols Didn't Just Get a Coach, They Got an Exorcism

Off the top I need to tell you I attended a school that did not have a football team when I was there. The one they have now plays at the Division II level. I bring this up so you understand I don't have an allegiance to any school that plays big-time football. Follow?

That said I'm signing on as a fan of the Tennessee Volunteers. Color me orange and let's all belt out a chorus of Rocky Top. And it all has to do with the fact Lane Kiffin ran off from the one that plucked him off the unemployment line for the juicy starlet in Tinsel Town -- and that Tennessee hired Derek Dooley.

No, I do not have a man-crush on young Dooley. I watched his dad Vince coach Georgia forever, but I was never part of the Bulldog faithful. The book on DD is that Tennessee is gambling -- he will either become a very good young coach or he will be in over his head and fail. (See: Shula, Mike -- The Alabama Years).

But the Vols should realize that Kiffin jilting them to take his style-over-substance act out West to USC, leaving them to have to go with an untried Dooley, pulls them back from the brink of perdition. The last time a coach was as ill-suited for a school it was when Ray Perkins was tapped to replace Bear Bryant at Alabama. And Perkins had a resume and his integrity intact.

Kiffin was an interesting hire by Tennessee, even though he'd failed as head coach of the Oakland Raiders. But the stink coming from the Raider front office overpowered the one left by Kiffin. He looked like a bright young coach, said the right things and looked good in Volunteer orange.

But he looked at being head coach of the Vols, a destination job, the way other young coaches look at schools like East Carolina, Utah or Minnesota. Those are places you go to win at the top level for a year or two to become the next big thing.

He doesn't care about the destruction he leaves in his wake because he plans to be long gone when the walls come crashing down. The mess the Kiffins of this world leave behind takes years to clean up and is very expensive. You'd swear his dad wasn't Monte but Jerry Tarkanian.

Contrast that with Derek Dooley, who passed on playing for his dad to walk on at Virginia. After college he got his law degree but couldn't resist going back to football as a coach, against his dad's advice.

He took the grunt jobs and came up through the ranks, with a lot of time under Nick Saban. He's known as a smart hard-working coach. Yes, his 17-20 record at Lousiana Tech raises a flag. He might be in over his head, but perhaps only an inch or two. If this is a gamble it's one worth taking.

It could be worse my Vols brethren. Kiffin might have decided to stay in Knoxville.