Tennessee football: Derek Dooley a few incidents from still being Vols coach

Missouri Tigers offensive coordinator Derek Dooley will face Tennessee football Saturday. He’d still be the Volunteers head coach but for a few incidents.

It’s well-documented that Derek Dooley guided Tennessee football through its worst three-year stretch in program history. The Vols suffered losing seasons in 2010, 2011 and 2012, all three years he was there, and inexplicably got progressively worse.

Nobody can argue with going 6-7, 5-7 and 5-7. However, the most forgotten part about Dooley’s tenure is how close he was to making it work. The guy truly does know football. And as he returns to Knoxville as the offensive coordinator for the Missouri Tigers this week, the players can’t forget that fact. How could he spend seven years with Nick Saban and not know football?

Looking back on Dooley’s tenure, it’s clear he made some mistakes. But lots of what happened was out of his control. The attrition from Phillip Fulmer to Lane Kiffin to him and the busted recruiting classes depleted the roster. NCAA investigations left by Kiffin hampered recruiting. And he entered an SEC as tough as it’s ever been, one year having to face the three best teams in the country.

However, even with all those things working against him, Dooley was very close to having a successful tenure. So let’s go back and look at the things that happened after he took over that wrecked him.

First, and most obviously, was the 13-men on the field penalty against the LSU Tigers. The Vols would have upset a Top 10 LSU team if a substitution confusion did not result in that penalty. Then you have the North Carolina Tar Heels taking advantage of no runoff to kick a game-tying field goal in the Music City Bowl and win in overtime.

Take those two plays out, and the Vols finish 2010 8-5 instead of 6-7. That does way more for recruiting overall, as Dooley has something to sell. But what happens the next year sends everything into a tailspin.

Even without the recruiting, Tennessee football should hope for a bowl game in 2011. But on a non-contact play against the Florida Gators, Justin Hunter, their top receiver, goes down with an injury. Two weeks later against the Georgia Bulldogs, Tyler Bray goes down as this team hits a four game losing streak and falls in six of eight games. However, with both healthy, they would’ve beaten Georgia and the South Carolina Gamecocks that year and maybe Florida.

So after their overtime win over the Vanderbilt Commodores, the Vols would’ve at worst headed to face the Kentucky Wildcats with a 7-4 record. Assuming that was the case, they would’ve been way more focused and likely would’ve won.

Now let’s bring up perspective. If there’s no 13-men on the field penalty, no fluke use of a loophole, and no fluke injuries to his two key players, Dooley has back to back eight-win seasons at a program in as bad of shape as possible.

At that point, Dave Hart does not publicly turn on Dooley, and Dooley’s staff members don’t leave. That is key for Tennessee football heading into the 2012 season. Instead, though, seven staff guys leave, most notably Justin Wilcox, the Vols defensive coordinator.

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Dooley sets out for a replacement. Nobody’s coming because of his hot seat. He has a chance to get Kevin Steele, a proven defensive coordinator from UT who is with the Clemson Tigers. But in that moment, Steele picks his one time to have a major mental lapse and gives up 70 points to the West Virginia Mountaineers. As a result, Dooley can’t hire him, and he has to settle on Sal Sunseri, a Nick Saban assistant who’s never been a coordinator and is coming to install a 3-4 defense.

This is the move that did him in. The final year, Tennessee football loses to Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Missouri specifically because of their horrendous defense. So just think about this for a minute.

Even with all the stuff that happened the previous two years, the Vols would’ve been heading to face the Vanderbilt Commodores in 2012 with an 8-2 record at worst had Dooley just hired Steele. Had he been able to keep his staff together, which does tie to the previous incidents, he would’ve been 9-1.

On that note, we’re just looking at the outcome of the games. This doesn’t factor in how recruiting and morale would’ve been way better. Instead, though, a horrid defense had the Vols at 4-6 and set to fire Dooley. That distraction gave them no chance against Vanderbilt, as they lost in a blowout, and Dooley was fired the next day.

Tennessee football was right to fire Dooley, as he didn’t get it done. The Vols appear to be much happier now with Jeremy Pruitt, even if Dooley’s direct successor, Butch Jones, was a complete failure. But a look at the overall picture of Dooley’s tenure shows that he was very close to being a successful coach. He just needed to get a few more breaks or do a couple of things different himself. And if that happened, he’d be a hero in Knoxville, still recruiting at a high level, and he would’ve done more than enough to stay on as head coach even to this point.