Tennessee football: Ranking Vols last 10 seasons with first-year coordinator

7. 2008

5-7 (3-5)

Dave Clawson (OC)

The Sal Sunseri hire certainly did Derek Dooley in. But four years before, the start of the fall of Tennessee football happened because of an offensive coordinator hire that got Phillip Fulmer fired. However, the circumstances were somewhat difference.

For one thing, Fulmer had more support from the administration and more pull to hire who he wanted. Also, Dave Clawson is a better coach overall than Sunseri, and that’s proven itself in subsequent years since then.

It’s almost unfair to call Clawson inexperienced since he was hired after a very successful stint as head coach of the Richmond Spiders. But, technically, he had never been a coordinator at the FBS level. Clawson’s issue is that his system takes time for people to pick up, and that’s something Fulmer didn’t need in 2008.

UT backed into the SEC East title in 2007, but David Cutcliffe then left to take the head coaching job with the Duke Blue Devils. Erik Ainge graduated. And a period of negative coverage throughout the early part of the 07 season wrecked the Vols’ recruiting class in 2008, which followed a busted class in 2007 and a prior bad class in 2006.

Combining that with Clawson’s new offensive scheme made for disaster in 2008. Jonathan Crompton, Nick Stephens and BJ Coleman all spent time at quarterback. But in a reverse of 2012, this team had a game it lost 14-12 and another it lost 13-7. The last time the scoring was that bad was 2005, the year before Cutcliffe took over.

And like 2005, the Vols stumbled to a losing season in 2008. This time, it was a 5-7 season. Two losing seasons in four years and no SEC titles in a decade resulted in the firing of Fulmer in November of that year.