The year 1998 represented something of a modern era in college football with the invention of the BCS.

Of course, the less said about the BCS, the better, and to go along the lines of thinking the worst, here are the worst head coaching hires since 1998 in the SEC.

10. Mike Shula, Alabama

There’s a school of thought that Shula is a pretty good coach, and not just because he is Don Shula’s son. Shula had been a fine quarterback at Alabama who once pulled out a thrilling 20-16 victory in the final minute against Georgia in the Crimson Tide’s revival season of 1985. He took Bama to the Cotton Bowl in 2005, and he’s currently the offensive coordinator of the NFC champion Carolina Panthers — not a bad résumé.

Unfortunately, there was the textbook scandal that vacated all of his victories in his final two seasons at the helm, and there were only six of them in 2006 to begin with, including losses to Tennessee, Auburn, and, GASP!, 3-9 Mississippi State!

In a down time for the program, he was arguably the program’s best coach between Gene Stallings and Nick Saban and deserves another shot as a head coach somewhere, either in the college ranks or the pros.

But the fact he had to vacate his wins from an otherwise successful 2005 season puts him on this list.

9. Ed Orgeron, Ole Miss

Everyone knew after Eli Manning graduated that Ole Miss would have a bit of regression. What they didn’t know is it would be so bad boosters would call for the firing of David Cutcliffe only one year after Cutcliffe stayed loyal to his assistants.

Enter Orgeron, who couldn’t get the assistants he wanted in the first place.

Placed into a position to fail, Orgeron did, failing to produce a winning record in any of his three seasons at the Oxford helm and losing his final game to Mississippi State, 17-14, after the Rebels held an initial 14-0 lead.

Houston Nutt was brought in and promptly won nine games in each of his first two seasons.

8. Dennis Franchione, Alabama

Here’s the first rule of being the Crimson Tide’s coach. You’re supposed to leave Texas A&M for Tuscaloosa, not the other way around.

After Franchione left for College Station, it made the Tide look something less than elite. That’s the greatest sin one can do to a program.

7. Guy Morriss, Kentucky

When one goes from SEC head coach to offensive line coach at a local high school, something is wrong. This is the employment path Guy Morris has taken.

The Kentucky Wildcats haven’t had a head football coach with a lifetime winning record since Blanton Collier coached the team from 1954-61, so it’s not like things haven’t gone wrong here before. Still, Morriss’ 7-5 record two years after the exciting Hal Mumme era seemed to promise better times ahead for the ‘Cats.

Instead, he scorned Kentucky for Baylor, a lateral move at best in 2003. Five losing seasons later and Morriss was regulated to the likes of Kentucky State and Texas A &M-Kingsville, where he still couldn’t produce a winning record.

At last report, Morriss is back in Lexington, coaching linemen at Christian Academy High.

Embarrassing.

6. Lane Kiffin, Tennessee

The dirty little secret nobody wants to acknowledge in Knoxville is Vol Nation loved Kiffin when he first came in. Tennessee fans relished in his brashness. They’d never hired a coach from the NFL before, and they relished in the fact they had a coach who could actually trash talk! From the start, Kiffin started pointing fingers at Urban Meyer and promised victories against Florida.

Finally, it seemed Tennessee would no longer lose trash talk battles to the likes of old nemesis Steve Spurrier. Heck, Kiffin even lured Spurrier’s own quarterbacks coach away!

The problem was there wasn’t a lot of substance to what Kiffin was saying. The aforementioned hire of John Reaves wasn’t getting South Carolina’s “best guy” as he told Sports Illustrated but rather hiring his father-in-law to be the quarterbacks coach. Instead, future Chicago Bears star Alshon Jeffery signed with the Gamecocks, even when Kiffin allegedly told the star receiver he’d wind up “pumping gas” for the rest of his life if he went to Columbia.

Kiffin enjoyed as much success as one realistically could expect, a 7-5 regular season record and trip to a minor bowl after a 5-7 season the year before under Phil Fulmer, who suddenly was losing recruiting battles he had previously won.

The reason Tennessee fans hate Kiffin now is because he left them after a year to go to Southern California. The Vols were once able to lure coaches away from national champions. Now, they had to admit subservience to the Pac-12?

The thing is, a little less believing of the false hype and a little more believing of what Al Davis had told the world just a few weeks before might have been wise.

5. Will Muschamp, Florida

There is a school of thought that the best head coaching job in the SEC is in Gainesville. Florida produces the most football players of any state in the conference, and with Miami now and perhaps forever regulated to third-string status in the state, recruiting wars with arch-rival Florida State can be won by promising players a chance to play in a superior conference.

Muschamp turned a national champion into a 4-8 team that lost to Georgia Southern. How good can a defensive guru be if he can’t stop an FCS team that never throws a pass?

He seems like a likable enough fella, and the early returns from his second chance at South Carolina seem to be positive.

But that’s the thing about Muschamp. Either he’s going to be on this list twice in future seasons, or he is going to really be hated in Gainesville for not winning in Florida but doing so at South Carolina.

4. Mike Price, Alabama

Price never coached a game at Alabama after getting into too much trouble at too many bars in the first months of his offseason tenure. His tenure was short, and so is his write-up.

3. Joker Phillips, Kentucky

Phillips inherited a program that had enjoyed four straight winning seasons at Kentucky. Initial reports were, by Kentucky standards, good: a bowl game his first season and the first victory in 27 years against Tennessee in his second.

Unfortunately, the program was regressing. The first bowl game came with a 6-6 record, made possible only when Steve Spurrier inexplicably attempted one last pass into the end zone that was intercepted instead of a field goal try in a 31-28 Gamecocks loss to the Wildcats. The 10-7 victory against Tennessee in 2011 only gave the ‘Cats a 5-7 mark.

Frankly, the program is still trying to recover from their 2-10 record in Phillips’ final season, which saw victories against only Kent State and Samford.

2. Derek Dooley, Tennessee

After Kiffin, a different personality was needed. Enter Derek Dooley: calmer, gentler and son of one of the great gentlemen of the SEC, Vince Dooley.

The problem was Dooley was not ready to become the head coach of a major program just yet. Promising assistant coaches, both at Tennessee and major powerhouses, were passed over for a coach coming off a 4-8 season at Louisiana Tech.

It showed. Dooley was a woeful recruiter, once bringing in a class that didn’t include an offensive lineman. It wasn’t enough that losing streaks to the likes of Alabama and Florida continued, it was the Vols were now losing to Kentucky and Vanderbilt!

Instead of competing for championships, Tennessee fans, who will brag on anything, were now reduced to championing last-place finishes in the SEC that didn’t net eight overall losses.

1. Bobby Petrino, Arkansas

It may have seemed like a coup for Arkansas to have landed an offensive guru from the NFL, but the way Petrino left the Atlanta Falcons — by leaving a note(s) in the locker room with three games left in their season — should have tipped the Razorbacks off to what kind of person they were getting.

Reportedly never a favorite of athletic director Jeff Long, Petrino did revive Arkansas football fortunes in 2010-11 by taking the team to the Sugar and Cotton Bowls.

But at what cost? An ugly scandal followed, where he lied about riding alone during a motorcycle accident only to have to later reveal his mistress had accompanied him. Furthermore, the woman involved was a former Arkansas athlete who was employed by the football program and given $20,000 by Petrino.

One can point to 21 victories in two seasons under Petrino’s reign. But at what cost? Furthermore, despite Petrino’s offensive genius, is it so hard to believe Ryan Mallett was destined to transfer to his home state Razorbacks after Michigan didn’t work out? How much of the revival was the player, and how much of it was the coach?

When a new coach enjoys success in his first season, credit is often given to his predecessor for leaving him with good players. In this case, responsibility for the subsequent demise of Arkansas football must be given to Petrino.

The primary sin of most of the coaches on this list is they lost games. Petrino’s sins were ones of ethics. In doing so, he put a greater stain on the Arkansas program than a losing record would ever provide.