Tennessee football: Five historic teams with bad losses Vols can look to

4. Washington State Cougars – 2015

Lost to Portland State Vikings 24-17

9-4 (6-3); W Sun Bowl

Tennessee football’s loss to the Georgia State Panthers has everybody screaming about how they should have hired Mike Leach in hindsight. Okay. Well, let’s engage this conversation and look at what Leach has done with the Washington State Cougars.

He was hired in 2012 and went 3-9. Then he went 6-7 in Year Two. Now, you may say WSU was a much worse job, but was it really worse than what Jeremy Pruitt inherited on Rocky Top? Anyway, the Cougars then went 3-9 again in 2014, and all of a sudden, questions arose as to whether or not Leach had lost his touch.

Enter 2015. Washington State, in the season-opener, suffered an upset loss to the Portland State Vikings, an FCS school. So he went from 3-9 to 6-7 to 3-9 and then 0-1 with an FCS loss. Think anybody still wanted Leach around after that?

Well, Leach recovered to go 8-4 on the year, upsetting the Oregon Ducks and UCLA Bruins on the road. He then beat the Miami Hurricanes 20-14 in the Sun Bowl to finish the season 9-4. Two years later, he was a prime candidate for the Vols’ head coaching job, and three years later, he had WSU in the College Football Playoff race until the final week of the regular season.

So before you say UT should have hired Leach over Jeremy Pruitt, look at what he did entering his fourth year on the job. This is only Pruitt’s second on Rocky Top, meaning it’s ridiculous to turn on him so quickly.