Tennessee football: Wild stat about new Democratic presidents, Vols coaches

This week assured that two things would take place in the fall of 2021. Inaugurating Joe Biden assured the United States will have a Democratic presidential administration in its first full year, and Tennessee football firing Jeremy Pruitt assured that it will have a new first-year full-time head coach.

Here’s the crazy part: That’s not the first time this has happened. In fact, it’s more common than not. Those two things have aligned for five straight Democrats in their first year as president dating back to Lyndon B. Johnson.

In November of 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The first full college football season that took place under Johnson as president was 1964. Tennessee football was in its first year under Doug Dickey as head coach that same season.

Jimmy Carter was the next Democratic president after Johnson, and the first full college season that took place under him was in 1977. That year also happened to be the Vols’ first year under head coach Johnny Majors.

There wouldn’t be another Democratic president until Bill Clinton in January of 1993. That ensuing fall also happened to be Phillip Fulmer’s first full season as head coach of the Vols. Sure, Fulmer coached the Vols for four games in 1992, but he was the interim head coach then.

Barack Obama became the next Democratic president. He was inaugurated in 2009. Later that year, Lane Kiffin was in the midst of his first and only season a head coach of the Vols full-time. Biden is the next Democratic president after Obama.

We should note that, ironically, Fulmer and Majors were both fired the week of the November elections the previous year. Our post here, to be fair, details just how unfortunate presidential election years have been for Tennessee football coaches.

Now, while all new Democratic administrations preside over new UT head coaches, it’s not the reverse. Bill Battle took over in Richard Nixon’s second year, Derek Dooley took over in Obama’s second year, Butch Jones took over in Obama’s fifth year and Jeremy Pruitt took over in Donald Trump’s second year.

Still, this is a crazy stat. Even crazier is that three of UT’s coaching changes in a row over a 32-year period occurred the same years as the three times during that period that a Democratic president was in the midst of replacing a Republican president: 1976-77, 1992-93 and 2008-09.

Of course, given the fact that Kiffin is on the list, this transition doesn’t always mean success. However, the other three coaches to do it all had real success with the Vols. Dickey, Majors and Fulmer are all in the College Football Hall of Fame, and hey, maybe Kiffin comes back to make up for leaving. He could still be on the program’s radar.

It’s also worth noting that Trump may have surpassed Obama in terms of presidents Tennessee football had its worst run under. The Vols at least had those two 9-4 seasons and top 25 finishes under Obama. If there was a Mt. Rushmore of presidents the Vols had success under, though, it would be Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Bill Clinton and either Nixon or George H.W. Bush.