Tennessee football has had the most success in over two decades during the Josh Heupel era, but it took some down years to reach the point where Tennessee could hire Heupel.
Before the Heupel era was the Jeremy Pruitt era. It was a call to old-school football fans, and former Tennessee head coach Philip Fulmer also took over as the school's athletic director.
Tennessee was returning to the ways of the 90s in every aspect of the program. Unfortunately, this change did not translate to the field, as Pruitt went 16-19 in his three years on Rocky Top.
Pruitt was also fired with cause after illegally paying recruits over $60,000. The scheme left Tennessee without a head coach again after the 2021 season, vacating 11 of Pruitt's 16 wins.
It was a disastrous hire for the Vols, and CBS Sports has named Pruitt the fifth-worst coaching hire of the past decade.
"Pruitt, who coached under the likes of Jimbo Fisher, Mark Richt, and Nick Saban, was one of the best defensive coordinators of the past decade," CBS Sports' Will Backus writes. "It seemed like a matter of time before he earned a power-conference job. Tennessee made that a reality in 2018, tabbing him as the team's leader after a bungled coaching search. That, in itself, is a story for another time.
"His real legacy lies in the NCAA investigation into recruiting violations that led to his firing for cause following a 3-7 2020 campaign. The NCAA Committee on Infractions found the Pruitt's program responsible for more than 200 individual violations, including 18 Level I in nature.
"All of his wins from 2019-20 were vacated, and Tennessee was hit with a scholarship reduction that hindered new coach Josh Heupel until recently -- plus an $8 million fine. Pruitt will likely never coach college football again. Given what he left Heupel, it's a miracle that he has won 37 games in four years."
Some other notable coaching hires on the list is Nebraska's Scott Frost at No. 13, Auburn's Bryan Harsin at No. 10, Arizona State's Herm Edwards at No. 9, Florida State's Willie Taggart at No. 4, Kansas' Les Miles at No. 2, and Arkansas' Chad Morris at No. 1.
Some of the coaches on the list were charity hires for the fans. Frost, Edwards, and Miles were a few hires made to bring "old school football" back to their programs. Along with Pruitt, all of these experiments failed miserably, ending the era of hiring these types of coaches.
Frost could be considered an exception to this rule as he was coming off a lot of success at UCF before taking the Nebraska job, returning to where he played college football.
As noted by Backus, Heupel inherited a dumpster fire and got the Vols back into the postseason, winning an Orange Bowl and making the program's first appearance in the College Football Playoff.
The Vols are coming off their second ten-win season over the past three years and will look to return to the CFP with a new quarterback running the show.