Good read.
Tennessee needed a coach with the ability to recruit at a high level and build a roster with power arms and power bats — a hallmark of winning teams in the SEC. Simply, the Vols lacked the roster and talent to win. They needed a coach who could stockpile talent and develop it.
“One of the things we noticed about Tony was that every place he had been, they had really good players,” said DeBord, now an associate athletics director for development at Memphis. “It was this trend of Tony was going to places and now all of a sudden, they were winning at a really high level.”...