Tennessee AD Danny White discusses his plan for hiring next Volunteers football coach
If you base the timeline for Tennessee’s upcoming football hire on the quick turnaround it took the school to land Danny White, the Vols could have a coach by Monday.
While it may be unreasonable to expect a hire that quickly, White has made it clear that was his first priority upon his arrival on Rocky Top was to hire a new football coach.
That being said, Tennessee’s AD has a proven method for hiring successful coaches and it all starts with reaching out to the players that are already entrenched in the program.
When asked for a timeline to make the hire, White noted that he must first receive feedback from the players on the football team.
“I’m meeting with the football team later this afternoon. I have never started a coaching search without hearing from the student-athletes,” White shared. “They know a whole lot about what’s going on. What’s going on well, what’s not going on well.”
White then shared that he plans to ask the team to vote privately on captains and openly discuss their concerns or issues with those selected players. He then plans to meet with the selected captains to get a better sense of the pulse of the team.
“That’s helped me in every search that I’ve led and I think it’s been a big part of why the vast majority, if not all, of those searches have led to a better than expected first year,” White added. “Which allows a new leader to get some momentum early on.”
Will Tennessee interim coach Kevin Steele be a candidate for the head coaching position?
White isn’t ready to rule out any candidate for the job.
“I’m scheduled to visit with Kevin later this afternoon. Everyone is a candidate, everyone in this room is a candidate at this point,” White continued. “We have not narrowed — (White then pointed at a reporter) email me your stuff! We have not narrowed this thing down at all.
“We are working through it but we are going to work quickly and I think there is a way, just as I witnessed seeing how quickly our leadership moved, in moving us a lot quicker than we ever thought we would in terms of making decisions.”
Lastly on the search, the new Tennessee AD was asked if the next coach requires head coaching experience to land the job.
“We are going to be expansive in our search to make sure we turn over every single stone and look for, again, what makes this place distinctive? We’d love to excite our fan base with whatever the hire is, and hopefully we do,” he concluded.
A very smart man. You have to get the team invested and empowered. This is 21st Century leadership.
I’m just waiting on Corch to give his usual dose of hate.
yeah, we should be hearing from the georgia inbred any minute now to enlighten us with his infinite football wisdom.
It certainly seems we hired the right AD. Now he has to hire the right HC. Stay tuned, it will be interesting if nothing else.
He was hired so quickly that I feel like some of this was worked out well ahead of the announcement that Fulmer/Pruitt were leaving. Also makes me wonder if he’s already had conversations with a coach or two or at least their agents.
Investigation started in November. Without a doubt this has been in the works. They needed to have a plan before dropping the hammer. UT could not handle another media circus like the last go round. I think competent AD’s always have short lists for any scenario. We’ll just have to wait and see what Mr. White has up his sleeves…
This guy probably had his top 3 before even accepting the job. Key thing is, is money. Tennessee always go gets a $3 million dollar guy when everyone else is paying $5 to &8 million. You get what you pay for.
Rumored Manning and the Haslams have been very proactive behind the scenes working on finding the best AD and best proven HC. Plowman verified Manning has been busy on this in her opening statement. Mentioning her speaking with him after he reached out to Cutcliffe on his idea of what to look for in hiring an AD.
This whole creepy deafening embarrassing last month has become telling. They’ve known what was coming, have the $$$$$ and balls to spend it. When they make this next hire…it will be a 7-8 year deal around $7-8million a season with a buyout that will by the next HC a small island in the South Pacific.
Got yourself a Lieutenant Spears in White. Running around, putting fires out, giving leadership. I don’t know about a coach by Monday but hey, wouldn’t be surprised either. Smart teams will intentionally give their coaching staff covid :)
Band of Brothers reference. Nice.
Next HC needs to be an offensive whiz kid. Someone that know offense. You can always get a good DC. These high powered offense these days, Tennessee needs someone who can call plays and coach just like them.
I’m just hoping we don’t hire another coordinator from Bama or Clemson. How hard is it to look like a genious coordinator when you have talent like that? I am hoping for a coach that has proven they can do more with less…which is what they will have to do for at least a few more recruiting classes. Unfortunately, we may have no choice considering the situation that any hire will need to be willing to accept at UT.
Go throw some money at Joe Brady. The young LSU whiz kid who lead LSU to NC and turned their offense around. His name is hot right now, recruits would want to come bc of what he did at LSU, and he is young enough to connect with players.