Revisiting Tennessee's Dumpster Fire of a Coaching Search After Firing Butch Jones

Tennessee fired head coach Butch Jones midway through another disappointing season in 2017. Unbeknownst to them at the time, they would then embark on one of the most chaotic coaching searches in college football history.

After firing Jones, Tennessee agreed to make former Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano, the former Rutgers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers boss, their next head coach. That decision, unfortunately, kicked off an unprecedented firestorm of reactions.

An army of former players and fans, led by college football blowhard Clay Travis, were upset about the decision to hire Schiano and so vitriolic in the way they displayed it that AD John Currie was forced to back out of the deal.

Currie than swung and missed on several big-name coaching candidates, including former Tennessee QB Tee Martin, Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy, and Washington State's Mike Leach. In December, Currie was fired as AD and replaced by former Volunteers coach and national champion Philip Fulmer. According to Brett McMurphy, Currie was willing to hire Leach, but Fulmer had been sabotaging the search in an effort to take the AD role from Currie.

Eventually, Fulmer hired Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. While he got off to a shaky start, Pruitt finished their 2019 season quite well.

While his tenure in Knoxville got off to a rough start after months of chaos in the hiring process, Tennessee finally has a head coach they believe in with Pruitt. Their decisions that led to hiring him, however, should be studied by all FBS schools for them to learn how NOT to hire a coach.