Tennessee football: Ranking every Vols team in 2010s decade
8. 2012
5-7 (1-7)
*No postseason
After Tennessee football’s 2011 season, Dave Hart publicly undercut Derek Dooley, resulting in many staff members bolting, including defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox. Dooley settled for Sal Sunseri to replace him because nobody else wanted to come outside of Kevin Steele, but Steele’s offer was pulled after his Clemson Tigers allowed 70 points in a bowl game.
It was all bad timing, as Steele would have been better. But in addition to that, Dooley retooled the offense with Jim Chaney and focuses more on throwing the ball a lot. He brought in an underwhelming recruiting class, but it still had talent. And with so many players back, the roster was finally where it needed to be.
So off the field, Dooley had finally built the Vols into a program that could compete in the SEC. He famously said at SEC Media Days that the league wouldn’t have Tennessee to kick around anymore. And early on, it looked that way. The Vols blew out the N.C. State Wolfpack to open the season, breaking their Georgia Dome curse.
At 2-0, they reached the top 25 for the first time since 2008. And then the Florida Gators were set to come to town with College GameDay there. This was the year the losing streak would end. Well, the Vols built a 20-13 lead late in that game and then stopped Florida on a fake-punt. They were set to stomp on their throats.
But a grounding penalty stalled that next drive. Then the Gators reeled off back to back touchdowns with Tyler Bray throwing his second interception between them. A 75-yard touchdown in the fourth put them up 34-20, and they won 37-20. It was a hint of the defensive issues on this team.
Later in the year, those issues got worse. UT scored 44 points at the Georgia Bulldogs, 31 at the Mississippi State Bulldogs and 35 at the South Carolina Gamecocks. They lost all of them by allowing 51, 41 and 38 points respectively. In between those games was a blowout loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide. They even allowed 48 points to the Troy Trojans but scored 55 to win.
In the middle of the season, Dooley had to coach games from crutches because of an emergency surgery he had. After a 51-48 loss to the Missouri Tigers, Dooley was effectively fired. It finally bottomed out with a 41-18 loss at the Vanderbilt Commodores. Hart fired Dooley the next day, and interim head coach Jim Chaney led the Vols to a 37-17 win over the Kentucky Wildcats.
From a talent perspective, this team is higher on the list. But other Tennessee football teams with losing records scored wins against ranked teams. Largely, those other teams had better defenses, and they were better-coached. A better defensive coordinator would have this team at 10-2. But Sunseri’s deficiencies and the switch to a 3-4 were disastrous.