Tennessee football: Ranking all 25 full-time head coaches in Vols history

5-5 (3-5 SEC)

Sticking with .500 coaches who lasted only a year, Jim McDonald is a bit of a different story from other one-year head coaches on this list. He was always seemed meant to be an interim for Tennessee football, but he did last for a full year, so he had to make decisions about the long-term nature of UT and things like that.

Initially a running back with the Ohio State Buckeyes, McDonald played in the NFL for the Detroit Lions in 1938 and 1939. He then became an assistant under the Vols during the Bowden Wyatt era. However, after early success, the program began to flounder.

It was clear the single wing was just too out of date, and the Vols were not equipped to compete in the modern era in the 1960s at the time. Wyatt’s tenure with the Vols ended in 1962, and McDonald took over for a team that had gone 4-6 the year before and hadn’t reached a bowl game in six years. As a result, you could say he inherited a bit of a mess.

However, McDonald never did anything to move past the mess. Sticking with the outdated systems, he started the year 1-5 with the Vols, losing to Auburn, Mississippi State, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Alabama, all key rivals at the time. He later lost to Ole Miss.

Beating Chattanooga, the Tulane Green Wave and, as usual even by that time, Vanderbilt and Kentucky to close out the season, helped offset the bad start, but Tennessee football was in no better shape a year later. McDonald moved into an athletic director role after that.