Ranking the 57 SEC coaching hires since 1992 expansion

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VOL Outlaw

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#1
4. Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee
Year: 1993
Record: 152-52 overall (96-34 SEC) in 16-plus seasons
Best season: National championship in 1998
Program record previous three seasons: 27-8-2 (15-6-1)
AD who made the hire: Doug Dickey

Imagine the whiplash longtime Tennessee fans must feel from the stability of the Fulmer era to all that has happened with the Vols head coaching position since. The rest of the conference made 31 hires during Fulmer’s tenure as head coach at Tennessee. His time started with palace intrigue as many believed he greased the rails for Johnny Majors’ exit while Majors was recovering from heart surgery. (Majors was one of the people who believed that version of events.) His time at UT ended with a bungling tenure as athletics director. But in between he reached the mountaintop with the national championship that keeps him in the good graces of many Vols fans even today.
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30. Lane Kiffin, Tennessee
Year: 2009
Record: 7-6 overall (4-4 SEC) in one season
Best season: 7-6 in 2009
Program record previous three seasons: 24-15 (14-10)
AD who made the hire: Mike Hamilton

Kiffin became the youngest head coach in the FBS when he was hired by the Volunteers at age 33. Still, he already had been an NFL head coach by that time and had a reputation as one of the game’s best offensive minds. He took the Vols from five wins in 2008 to seven wins in 2009, but then he took off. There’s no real crime in leaving to take the head coaching job at USC, but Kiffin managed to handle it poorly enough that he instantly became persona non grata in Knoxville. This is one of the low-key “What Ifs” in SEC history because Kiffin seems to have shown at Ole Miss that, with a little experience, he can be a stable (and exciting) head coach. If he sticks at UT and grows into the role, we never know the beauty of the Derek Dooley, Butch Jones and Jeremy Pruitt eras, and the Vols don’t fall as far as they have.
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34. Butch Jones, Tennessee
Year: 2013
Record: 34-27 overall (14-24 SEC) in four-plus seasons
Best season: 9-4 with a final AP ranking of No. 22 in 2015, 2016
Program record previous three seasons: 16-21 (5-19)
AD who made the hire: Dave Hart

It is an uncomfortable reality for Tennessee fans that Jones is their most successful head coach in more than a decade. Jones improved and stabilized the Vols after the Derek Dooley era, and his teams won nine games in back-to-back seasons. His goofy slogans and verbal missteps made him an easy target by the end of his tenure. No one is arguing that it wasn’t time for him to go when he did, but Tennessee has done worse in head coaching hires.
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49. Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee
Year: 2018
Record: 16-19 overall (10-16 SEC) in three seasons
Best season: 8-5 in 2019
Program record previous three seasons: 22-16 (9-15)
AD who made the hire: Phillip Fulmer

The most interesting part of the Pruitt era was the coaching search that got him to Knoxville. It landed on Greg Schiano and Mike Leach at different times, got John Currie fired and Phillip Fulmer hired as athletics director, and all for what? Pruitt came off the Nick Saban assistant assembly line and tried to build a little Alabama. His administration decided he had succeeded. The problem? He allegedly created old-school, NCAA-violation-happy Alabama, according to Tennessee, which started an internal investigation and fired him.
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53. Derek Dooley, Tennessee
Year: 2010
Record: 15-21 overall (4-19 SEC) in three seasons
Best season: 6-7 in 2010
Program record previous three seasons: 22-17 (13-11)
AD who made the hire: Mike Hamilton
Mike Hamilton made a bold hire in Lane Kiffin and when that didn’t work out … boy, did he go in the opposite direction. Dooley, the son of longtime Georgia coach and athletic director Vince Dooley, had name recognition, a stint on two Nick Saban staffs and a 17-20 record as Louisiana Tech’s head coach. And that’s about it. It was an uninspired hire and an uninspired tenure that resulted in only four conference wins in three seasons.
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From Nick Saban (twice) to Mike Price: Ranking the 57 SEC coaching hires since 1992 expansion

1. Nick Saban, Alabama
2. Urban Meyer, Florida
3. Nick Saban, LSU
4. Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee
5. James Franklin, Vanderbilt
6. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina
7. Les Miles, LSU
8. Mark Richt, Georgia
9. Dan Mullen, Mississippi State
10. Ed Orgeron, LSU
11. Kirby Smart, Georgia
12. Terry Bowden, Auburn
13. Tommy Tuberville, Auburn
14. Gene Chizik, Auburn
15. Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M
16. Dan Mullen, Florida
17. Mark Stoops, Kentucky
18. Gus Malzahn, Auburn
19. Lou Holtz, South Carolina
20. Houston Nutt, Arkansas
21. Hugh Freeze, Ole Miss
22. David Cutcliffe, Ole Miss
23. Jim Donnan, Georgia
24. Bobby Petrino, Arkansas
25. Jim McElwain, Florida
26. Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M
27. Dennis Franchione, Alabama
28. Gerry DiNardo, LSU
29. Rich Brooks, Kentucky
30. Lane Kiffin, Tennessee
31. Hal Mumme, Kentucky
32. Tommy Tuberville, Ole Miss
33. Joe Moorhead, Mississippi State
34. Butch Jones, Tennessee
35. Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt
36. Houston Nutt, Ole Miss
37. Sylvester Croom, Mississippi State
38. Matt Luke, Ole Miss
39. Will Muschamp, Florida
40. Danny Ford, Arkansas
41. Barry Odom, Missouri
42. Mike Shula, Alabama
43. Guy Morriss, Kentucky
44. Bret Bielema, Arkansas
45. Mike DuBose, Alabama
46. Will Muschamp, South Carolina
47. Ron Zook, Florida
48. Derek Mason, Vanderbilt
49. Jeremy Pruitt, Tennessee
50. Woody Widenhofer, Vanderbilt
51. Brad Scott, South Carolina
52. Joker Phillips, Kentucky
53. Derek Dooley, Tennessee
54. Ed Orgeron, Ole Miss
55. Rod Dowhower, Vanderbilt
56. Chad Morris, Arkansas
57. Mike Price, Alabama
 
#8
#8
Jaws said:
Dooley was better than Pruitt.
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Derek Dooley went 4-19 in the SEC. As bad as Pruitt was, he was nowhere near that incompetent. Pruitt inherited a bigger mess than Dooley. Dooley nuked in-state recruiting bridges. Dooley didn't sign OL in recruiting classes. Given the school and the expectations of the school, Dooley should have been dead last on this list.

I would have no issue saying Pruitt should have been 56 and Dooley should have been 57. They were both that bad.
 
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#9
#9
Given who we passed on (Kelly and Gary Patterson), Hamilton nuking the buyout provision to save some pennies plus the damage to the program as a result of those actions, the Kiffin hire is way too high here. That entire hiring process should be in the bottom 10.

Note, I am not saying Kiffin is a bottom 10 coach but that "hire" and all the aspects surrounding that hire make it bottom 10.
 
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#10
#10
GroverCleveland said:
Nope, nope, nope. As much as I disliked him, the Ole Ball Coach ranks above Fulmer and I'd rank him above Saban/LSU.

And I'd move Richt above above Franklin, but Richt lost control of this ranking...
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Since expansion in 1992 is the key here. So we're not talking about UF Spurrier since he was already there. We're talking South Carolina Spurrier.
 
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#13
#13
BigOrangeMojo said:
Given who we passed on (Kelly and Gary Patterson), Hamilton nuking the buyout provision to save some pennies plus the damage to the program as a result of those actions, the Kiffin hire is way too high here. That entire hiring process should be in the bottom 10.

Note, I am not saying Kiffin is a bottom 10 coach but that "hire" and all the aspects surrounding that hire make it bottom 10.
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The night Kiffin eloped to USC was the end of Tennessee football as we knew it. That one act did more to destroy the reputation of our program than all the hires combined.
 
#15
#15
HAHAHA I just noticed this line, about Pruitt; "He allegedly created old-school, NCAA-violation-happy Alabama." I'm laughing because that is very much current-school Alabama
 
#16
#16
BigOrangeMojo said:
Derek Dooley went 4-19 in the SEC. As bad as Pruitt was, he was nowhere near that incompetent. Pruitt inherited a bigger mess than Dooley. Dooley nuked in-state recruiting bridges. Dooley didn't sign OL in recruiting classes. Given the school and the expectations of the school, Dooley should have been dead last on this list.

I would have no issue saying Pruitt should have been 56 and Dooley should have been 57. They were both that bad.
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Dooley’s team of Bray, Hunter, Patterson struck fear in many SEC opposing fans, including this one. Those UT offenses were bad ass.

Nothing, and I mean nothing about a Pruitt-led team struck fear in anyone. And in light of the NCAA issues apparently under Pruitt’s leadership, Dooley was/is the better coach.
 
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#17
#17
Jaws said:
Dooley’s team of Bray, Hunter, Patterson struck fear in many SEC opposing fans, including this one. Those UT offenses were bad ass.

Nothing, and I mean nothing about a Pruitt-led team struck fear in anyone. And in light of the NCAA issues apparently under Pruitt’s leadership, Dooley was/is the better coach.
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Agree
 
#19
#19
Jaws said:
Dooley’s team of Bray, Hunter, Patterson struck fear in many SEC opposing fans, including this one. Those UT offenses were bad ass.

Nothing, and I mean nothing about a Pruitt-led team struck fear in anyone. And in light of the NCAA issues apparently under Pruitt’s leadership, Dooley was/is the better coach.
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Derek Dooley on the opposing sideline struck fear in no SEC coach, not even a school playing a WR at QB. Those stacked Dooley offenses never did sh-t against a team with a pulse. Doesnt matter if you score 20 if the other team scores 50.

10-16 SEC record > 4-19 SEC record
 
#20
#20
Jaws said:
Dooley’s team of Bray, Hunter, Patterson struck fear in many SEC opposing fans, including this one. Those UT offenses were bad ass.

Nothing, and I mean nothing about a Pruitt-led team struck fear in anyone. And in light of the NCAA issues apparently under Pruitt’s leadership, Dooley was/is the better coach.
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Cmon. Pruitt won more SEC games in Year 2 alone than Dooley did in all three years
 
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#21
#21
Pruitt was better than Dooley and also recruited better and won a bowl game along with winning 8 games. Dooley never had a winning season at Tennessee. Pruitt won 10 SEC games to Dooley’s measly 4
 
#22
#22
Jaws said:
Dooley’s team of Bray, Hunter, Patterson struck fear in many SEC opposing fans, including this one. Those UT offenses were bad ass.

Nothing, and I mean nothing about a Pruitt-led team struck fear in anyone. And in light of the NCAA issues apparently under Pruitt’s leadership, Dooley was/is the better coach.
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Dooley’s teams had garbage defenses
 
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#23
#23
Ed O at 10th and 54th? Not sure of the logic here but just based on that this list is dumb. He didn’t all of a sudden go from being one of the worst hires ever in one case to one of the best ones.
 
#24
#24
MSME Vol said:
Got to love how coach O is both number ten and fifty four
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I was just scrolling down to say Coach O is top 10 and also bottom 5.

I guess they were lucky they had Mike Price to put last. Nobody wants to be last. So Chad Morris is really that bad. HE's the one who actually counts.
 
#25
#25
I am going to question how Joe Moorhead, who got fired after only two seasons, had 7 games vacated, and finished 1 game over .500 was better than Butch. Not sure I get the logic there.
 
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