It isn't often that you don't want to see your favorite team or its head coach in a list of the Top 25 for their sport. However, when CBS released its list of college football's top 25 worst coaching hires this century, Tennessee fans were only reminded of the bad times.
Since Josh Heupel took over the program, things have turned around in Knoxville, but that wasn't always the case since the turn of the century.
In fact, two former Tennessee Volunteer head coaches not only found themselves on the list, but they found themselves within the top 10 worst hires since 2000.
Derek Dooley was brought to Knoxville to replace Lane Kiffin, who had just accepted the head coaching role at South Carolina. Dooley checked all the boxes: he had a famous father, Vince Dooley, who was a successful college football coach, and he had both collegiate and NFL coaching experience.
Then, he floundered. Over three seasons, he won just two games, leading the Volunteers to their first back-to-back losing seasons in a century (yes, literally 100 years). To put it simply, Dooley dug Tennessee into a grave that would set the program back for years to come.
Jeremy Pruitt was more than just a bad coach; he was also one riddled with scandal, not to mention the complete ineptitude by the Tennessee athletic department throughout the hiring process. The Vols were looking for a head coach for a long time. Fans eventually created a virtual coop to oust then-AD John Currie because he nearly hired Greg Schiano after failing to hire Mike Leach.
At the end of the day, Tennessee fired Currie and hired Pruitt as its new head coach, which was fine(ish) with fans, for a brief moment. He blundered his way through SEC matchups and brought in scrutiny unlike any other from the NCAA.
Tennessee was accused of directly handing money to players and their families in paper bags (long before NIL deals were allowed). Eventually, the Volunteers were found guilty of hundreds of NCAA violations under Pruitt's reign.
Putting it lightly, the Pruitt and Dooley Eras of Tennessee football were some of the worst eras imaginable and deserved to be on CBS's list. However, the Vols would surely appreciate it if everyone could move on and focus on the present once again.