Tider, Clay is a Vandy grad, but he does not "hate UT". He's an incredibly huge fan, and is open about it. No idea how you could think otherwise...

Totally agree. Steele is probably a superior DC to anyone Heupel could hire, with the possible exceptions of a very few, and almost none realistically. Muschamp is living the fat buyout life, absolutely no reason for him to get out of his hammock to sign up for this, and to work for a G5 coach with less than 40 games as a HC under his belt. Heck, Muschamp might be a candidate for the open job at UCF...

The accomplishments of Heupel? He's been a HC for 36 games, comparable to Dooley's 37 when he got the UT gig. Heupel is 28-8 against Dooley's 17-20....but unless you're 5 years old, you understand the chasm of difference between taking over a terrible team that has to be built and having a ready-made winner handed to you. LA Tech was coming off 3-10 when they hired Dooley....UCF was coming off 13-0 when they hired Heupel. Not remotely close to comparable.

Ole Miss gets to play Vandy every year....you don't hear us crying about it. Take it up with Sankey. But it must suck knowing that your HC is a fraud, that you caught lightning in a bottle one time and all those that made it happen are gone. That leaves you with a fat contract extension and buyout for a HC that can never recapture that success...pretty much exactly like Gene Chizik at Auburn after Gus and Cam Newton simultaneously left. Saban, on the other hand, has proven time and again to withstand coach and player losses better than anyone.

You're hardly the first person to come up with that idea. And when it went to a vote of the 14 coaches a few years ago, it was 13-1 against. Only Saban was in favor. It's in their best interest to play 8 with 3 payday games and 1 P5, so that's what they do.

Maybe you meant that Heupel worked for Bob, not Mark....which makes me wonder why you mentioned Mark or what he has to do with anything. But if your point was "Bob was great and Heupel worked for Bob", then my response remains the same. If Stoops equals Heupel, then Pruitt should equal Saban...and we know that ain't right. Also, Saban never fired Pruitt....Bob Stoops fired Heupel after the 2014 season.

When did Butch beat Florida twice? And if you're gonna give Heupel credit for wins as an assistant (OU beating Bama in a bowl game 7 years ago), don't you have to also say that Pruitt won 2 national titles (as DC)? Seems disingenuous to say Pruitt wasn't qualified when his resume (as an assistant) dwarfs Heupel's....

Mark Stoops is Bob's brother, not his son. So your thinking is that a) Bob Stoops is a great coach, and b) Mark is related to him, and c) Heupel worked under Mark, then that all means that Heupel is the second coming? That's some serious "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" wishful thinking there. Not much different than "Saban is a great coach, and Pruitt worked for Saban"....how did that work out?

Giving Heupel credit for winning with Frost's players, I see. Larry Coker won a natty at Miami with Butch Davis's players, too...how'd that work out after all those players cycled out? UCF was barely over .500 in a G5 conference this year...

Heupel may prove to be great, but people crucifying White for spending UT's money on a search firm are 100% correct. He hired a guy he already knew...all it took was a phone call. Seems like if White is supposed to be some AD savant, you would think that thought might have occurred to him BEFORE he wasted UT's time and money. I mean, a new AD hiring his buddy from his last job doesn't take a MENSA member....

If White spent UT's money hiring a search firm to produce candidates, only to ignore those suggestions to hire a guy he already knew and could have gotten with a phone call, that would be the most Vol thing ever....

This to me seems like UT floating their guy out there to gauge the response, after the Schiano debacle. Taken with the story that PJ Fleck has supposedly denied interest, this makes me think that White knows it's gonna be Elliott or Dykes, and he's getting the fanbase acclimated to that notion (while still letting fans know he's shooting for Franklin). Could be wrong, and Low is a homer for sure, but that's exactly why he is the perfect media member to give this story, knowing that the most positive spin possible will be put on it....

Franklin would be beyond a great hire. He's won about 65% of his games as a HC, and that includes Vanderbilt. Pretty impressive. However, he's not leaving PSU for UT, not for anything short of 7 years, $60 million.

Welcome, Coach Gillespie! You have big shoes to fill on the recruiting trail...

Fantastic point. This was not the DC job, this was a position coach. That's like assistant to the assistant manager....he was and is well qualified for that job. Regardless, according to the story, Sark was coerced into this because Stoops has such prominent Oklahoma ties, not for any coaching acumen that he does or doesn't have. And THAT is the problem....

But he wouldn't avoid Bama, because they play every year. Yeah, the East is a little easier than the West, but not enough to make it worth Gus getting off the couch to absorb this mess. Nobody living the buyout life is gonna take this job on...which makes the list of Elliott, Dykes and Fleck pretty believable...those guys aren't getting paid NOT to work.

I thought Michigan's football program had been shut down for a couple of years now...

If they hire a head coach with even the slightest consideration for what Arch Manning thinks, then they should just stop playing football. You can't hand out contracts based on the whims of a 15 year old kid, who may change his mind a dozen times between now and when he graduates high school...that would be the zenith of idiocy.

I remember Robert Gillespie from his Gator days...I was in college then, myself. His work with the running game at UNC this year was outstanding. Charles Huff is a phenomenal recruiter and no Bama fan wanted to lose him, but hopefully this hire will happen to soften the loss.

Sonny Dykes is a second generation coach with deep ties to Texas. His dad was HC at Texas Tech back in the 90s. Could probably recruit in Texas better than other candidates. He never did much at Cal, even with Jared Goff as his QB, but he never really seemed like a fit in Berkeley in the first place. Elliott seems great, but isn't he kinda Pruitt's doppelganger? Coordinator from Top 5 program with no head coaching experience.... isn't that what they just had? Fleck is probably the best candidate of the 3, but I don't think any of these guys are what most of the fanbase has in mind...

Inexcusable. If Sark is ALREADY letting himself be dictated to by Buddy Garrity-like fatcats, he is destined to fail. You CANNOT let bankers and car dealers tell you who can and can't be on your staff. Grow a pair, Sark...

Well, he's clearly delusional, but he'll fit right in with 90% of the Volunteer fanbase. These are the same people who were convinced that Gruden was coming to Knoxville.... couldn't tell them otherwise, even in the face of elusive concepts like "common sense" and "reason".

Well if he's hiring now, you can scratch Gus and Herman off... they're living the buyout life, absolutely no reason to take ANY job in 2021, let alone this Chernobyl-like job. Freeze is clearly not a candidate, if you listened to what Donde Plowman and Randy Boyd said. They aren't dumb enough to give Pruitt's lawyers that kind of ammo in the inevitable lawsuit over his buyout. Napier and Chadwell are maybes, but they both have good teams coming back...they can wait until next year and almost certainly have better options. If you rush it, you'll end up with Derek Dooley again. Better to roll with Steele for a year than panic hire someone who is woefully unqualified (again). But we'll see, maybe White can pull someone he has a prior relationship with, like Heupel at UCF or Lance Leipold at Buffalo.

Will be interesting to see. If he's hiring now, his pickings are going to be REALLY slim. I'm also interested to see how fast White walks back all the trash he's talked about the SEC for the last 3 years, and how willing he'll be to give UCF a home and home with UT, now that he's on the uptown side of the railroad tracks. Big mouth, but his hiring record is pretty solid. Hired Nate Oates at Buffalo, who is now killing it at Bama. Scott Frost worked out well for UCF (not so much for Nebraska). So we'll see.