Tennessee football: 5 reasons for concern over Vols hiring OC Jim Chaney

2. Tennessee football’s last stint with Jim Chaney was unsuccessful.

You can blame it on Derek Dooley. Heck, you can even blame it on hiring Sal Sunseri. And it’s fair to blame everything on the level of attrition that faced the program when Dooley took over and Jim Chaney stayed on.

But no matter what you say, you can’t ignore the fact that Chaney was one of the three most important staff members on the most failed coaching tenure in Tennessee football history. Remember, that staff had three straight losing seasons and missed a bowl for two straight seasons.

They lost to the Kentucky Wildcats for the first time in 25 years solely thanks to a terrible output by Chaney’s offense. And yes, they were part of a program that hit what was considered rock bottom before Butch Jones further sunk the ship.

Chaney may not have been at fault. Heck, he was even 1-0 as a head coach during that tenure. But it is a bit concerning to bring him back when you consider how bad the period was the last time he was on Rocky Top. Often times, people would want to forget everything associated with such a bad tenure.

After all, if Justin Wilcox, the defensive coordinator in 2011 and 2012, is now a successful head coach, who could have been at fault for those two losing seasons when Wilcox and Chaney were both the coordinators? Somebody has to be at fault.

Things are indeed different this time around, and Chaney does have more experience. So we’ll see what happens. That questionable period, though, is worth bringing up. And as you’ll see with our final reason, Chaney can’t be absolved of blame for what went on during that period for the Vols at the start of this decade.