Ex-Vol Douglas Signs With Alabama

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A little background on this one:

Aaron Douglas was a Tennessee kid.  His father was an NFL offensive lineman who starred for the Vols in the 1980s.  His mother played for Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols.

He was a legacy at Tennessee — not unlike Kent Dorfman at Delta Tau Chi.

But after Douglas signed with Tennessee, Phillip Fulmer was ousted.  Then after becoming a freshman All-American at left tackle, his next coach — Lane Kiffin — left, too.

According to Douglas’ father, his son then battled depression (not leaving his room, staying in bed, etc) and needed a change of scenery.  Much to the family’s chagrin, he asked for a transfer from new UT coach Derek Dooley and hoped to start again somewhere else… somewhere where he wasn’t standing in his parents’ shadows.

Dooley did not take kindly to the fact that Douglas did not give him a fair chance to win him over, so rather than give the player a release with typical no-team-in-the-conference stipulations, the coach informed the family that Douglas would only be given a release if he transferred to a school at least eight hours from Knoxville.

Rather than allow someone he did not recruit and someone who had already been through two coaches to leave, Dooley applied some punitive damages forcing the player and his family to have to travel eight hours.

It is believed Douglas wanted to transfer to North Carolina, but Dooley’s eight-rule mandate drove him elsewhere.  The lineman chose to transfer to Arizona Western of the juco ranks for a year.  Having played out West this past season, Douglas is free to sign wherever he likes.

Fast-forward to yesterday…

And now Douglas has signed to play football at Alabama.

Alabama fans will cheer the fact that Nick Saban has plugged a hole on his line with a former freshman All-American.  Tennessee fans will scream that Douglas is a turncoat and a wretch.

In reality, Dooley asked for this result.

Had Tennessee’s coach simply limited Douglas’ choices to non-SEC schools, the player would probably be at North Carolina waiting to play next season.  If Dooley had narrowed the player’s choices to schools not on UT’s immediate schedule (and UNC was on the Vols’ schedule in 2011 at the time of the Douglas dust-up), he would probably be sitting out his transfer year at Duke right now.

Instead, Dooley played hardball and tried to force Douglas to go eight hours away.  Well, he drove him away alright.  Right to a junior college and now to Alabama.