A couple of weekends ago, Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley was summoned to Indianapolis.  Even though he had no hand in the football violations under Lane Kiffin’s watch or the basketball violations under Bruce Pearl’s, the NCAA wanted Dooley (and UT basketball coach Cuonzo Martin) in the house for educational purposes.

And Dooley says he did do some learnin’:


“I do think when you see how one bad choice or one bad decision can impact so many different lives, it resonates with you.  I think it was also sort of a good reminder of how the landscape is changing.  It really is — moving away and putting more and more responsibility on the head coach to really have comment of the whole shop.  It’s challenging to be able to do that, but that’s the landscape right now…

(After the hearing) I had a long meeting with the coaches and I wanted them to kind of get a feel for what I felt in Indianapolis.  They’re the ones in the field more than me.  You’re constantly trying to promote an atmosphere of compliance.  You want to balance the — I don’t want to use the word pressure — but you’re pushing your coaches to perform and pushing them to get results in recruiting.  But at the same time, you’ve got to make sure they understand it’s never at the expense of the rules.  That’s just something you’ve go to constantly do.”


Tougher, harsher NCAA sanctions against programs and individual coaches — head or assistant — might help fend off the lure to cut corners and cheat.

It seems Lane Kiffin is the Typhoid Mary of the sporting world.  Just a quickie observation here regarding the one-time SEC lightning rod:


Mike Hamilton hired Kiffin in November of 2008.  Kiffin departed Tennessee in January of 2010.  Hamilton resigned at UT in June of 2011.

Mike Garrett hired Kiffin to Southern Cal in January, 2010.  In July of 2010, Garrett was ousted from his job with the Trojans.


Kiffin keeps getting hired, but the men who hire him sure don’t seem to last very long.

WBIR-TV in Knoxville is reporting that Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton will resign at 11am ET this morning.  Hamilton has been UT’s AD since 2003 and has been in hot water since his hiring of Lane Kiffin went South in January of 2010.

While Hamilton has been a whipping boy in the state of Tennessee and around the nation, his undoing was certainly aided by other men:


* Had Phillip Fulmer not had two losing seasons in four years and Neyland Stadium not seen massive attendance drops, Hamilton would not have had to replace him.

* Had Lane Kiffin not left for his “dream job” at Southern Cal just one year into his Tennessee tenure, Vol fans would be rallying around their coach as he prepared for a date with the NCAA this weekend.

* Had Bruce Pearl not lied to NCAA investigators about a barbecue at his house, Hamilton’s most popular hire would still be on the Vols’ bench.


That, of course, only shapes the situation.  It was Hamilton who chose to hire Kiffin and Pearl — as well as recently-fired baseball coach Todd Raleigh.  The buck stops at the top.

But now Hamilton is leaving the post and he’s doing so just days before Tennessee meets with the NCAA committee on infractions this Friday.  The UT administration dumped Pearl — in part — so the school could tell the NCAA that it had rid itself of the main rulebreaker.  It’s possible then that UT’s administration decided axing Hamilton would send a similar message.

Now Tennessee can tell the NCAA that the coaches who did wrong and the man who oversaw them are all gone.  “So don’t blame us, ‘kay?”

It will be certainly be interesting to see how the NCAA handles its punishment of UT now that Kiffin, Pearl and Hamilton are all gone.

Everybody does it.  When it comes to hiring recruiting services to provide videos of players and contact information, that’s pretty much true.  Every school pays them for info and game tape.  (In Oregon’s case and a few others, questions have arisen regarding what else the services might have provided, but that’s a different story.)

Tennessee — traditionally — has had one of if not the highest recruiting budget in the SEC.  As one of the “big six” programs in the league, the Vols have competed with Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU while having the weakest in-state recruiting base of the bunch.  So it makes sense that they would spend the most money on outside services. 

But according to Derek Dooley, he’s careful about what he spends and where he spends it:


“We’re not trying to be cheap, but also there’s a little bit of fiscal responsibility in not being grossly excessive.  It’s easy in these kinds of programs because you’ve got so many people and plenty of money not to have that oversight.  That’s where excess can happen.

There’s obviously no abuse and we’re getting good return on investment.  I think every year we need to revisit it, and that’s what we’ve done.”


The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that Tennessee’s pay-outs to recruiting services has risen from Phillip Fulmer to Lane Kiffin to Dooley.

Each time I compare Dan Mullen to Lane Kiffin I get a slew of angry emails from Mississippi State fans.  Trouble is, Dan Mullen is comparable to Lane Kiffin.

He’s young.  He’s cocky.  He’s mouthy.  And he likes to throw a barb at the competition whenever he can. 

If your coach does that, you love him and there’s nothing wrong with it.  If your rivals’ coach does that, you hate him and he’s just being classless.  And if you’re an objective outsider you say, “Hey, that guy acts like Lane Kiffin.”

Yesterday, an animated Houston Nutt began his post-signing day press conference by excitedly mentioning the fact that Ole Miss had signed the top five players in the state of Mississippi and eight of the top 12.  He took no shots at Mississippi State — from the clips I watched — and simply stated facts, just as any coach would have.

But it appears Mullen made the mistake of reacting to a reporter’s version of the events.  Again.  Last summer, a reporter at SEC Media Days baited MSU’s coach into taking a shot at Nick Saban when, in fact, Saban had said nothing that should have riled up Mullen in the first place.

This time around, someone apparently told the coach that Nutt “bragged about the amount of in-state talent he bagged.” Mullen replied as follows:


“That’s good.  I thought we did pretty well, too.  I guess we’ll find out next Thanksgiving, just like the last two Thanksgivings.”


Well, that’s just nasty.  It’s Kiffinesque.  And while MSU fans will no doubt rally ’round their coach’s defiant tone — Hell, yeah! — it’s that kind of talk that makes what a Miami trustee said about Mullen in December seem so utterly believable.  The Miami Herald at the time reported that a UM trustee revealed that Mullen had turned off the search committee with his “big ego” saying that “he acts like he invented the game.”

No kidding.

And I’m sure Mullen’s gums wouldn’t have been poppin’ had he signed the top five players in Mississippi and eight of the top 12.

Kentucky linebacker Lamar Dawson had chosen to play ball at Southern Cal.  UK fans had hoped to fend off a last-minute push from Tennessee to keep Dawson in state, but it was Tennessee’s old coach Lane Kiffin who came back to haunt both schools.

Dawson was Mr. Football in the state of Kentucky.

Defensive back Byron Moore from Los Angeles Harbor Community College committed to Tennessee on Monday night.

Moore chose UT over Miami.

Moore began his career at Southern California in 2009. He redshirted that year and decided to transfer to the junior college after Lane Kiffin and his staff arrived at USC.

Moore is the 24th commitment for UT’s class of 2011.

Defensive back Byron Moore from Los Angeles Harbor City Community College has confirmed he’s only considering Tennessee and Miami.

Moore told MrSEC.com via text message that he informed Oregon State’s coaches he’s no longer considering the Beavers.

Moore, who will take his final official visit to Miami this weekend, said he plans to choose between UT and Miami some time next week.

Moore spent the 2009 season redshirting at Southern California. He transferred to Harbor City after Lane Kiffin and his staff arrived at USC. Moore will have three years to play three at his next school.

Moore had also considered LSU, Ohio State and several schools in the Pac-10.

Tennessee officials announced today that tailback David Oku will transfer after the spring semester.  A key signee in Lane Kiffin’s one and only Vol recruiting class, Oku spent 2010 in and out of coach Derek Dooley’s doghouse.

“David has handled this situation in a professional way, and we mutually agreed that his departure is best for him and for our program,” Dooley said via press release.

The Oklahoma-native was ranked as the #1 all-purpose running back in the 2009 signing class by Rivals.com.

Next stop: Southern Cal?

To date, two coaches have come out in support of embattled Tennessee basketball coach Bruce Pearl.  One is Villanova’s Jay Wright, who is not an SEC rival.  The other coach might surprise you.

In the SEC, fans enjoy hating rival coaches, players and fans.  And they really enjoy coaches and players who make no bones about hating one another.  The relationship — and I use that term loosely — between Lane Kiffin and Urban Meyer comes to mind.

But the animosity that existed between Tennessee’s and Florida’s old football coaches does not carry over to basketball.  In fact, Billy Donovan has chosen to lend his verbal support to his UT counterpart.

“I’ve got a good relationship with Bruce,” Donovan told The Knoxville News Sentinel.  “I feel bad, in a lot of ways, for the things he’s going through personally.  It’s an unfortunate situation.

“I look at it from a different standpoint.  We all make mistakes.  We all do things we regret.  Nobody’s perfect and I’m not condoning any of his actions because I don’t know what went on.

“But you know what?  He is a person, a human being.  Forget the coaching, forget the sanctions.  Him as a person, I hope he’s able to find some peace in his heart with what’s happened and can move forward in his life.”

Donovan surprised many be showing up and taking part in a Pearl-backed anti-cancer fundraiser in Knoxville last year.

His comments regarding Pearl’s NCAA failings — while the exact opposite of what we would expect to hear from fans — are welcome.  You can be sure that Vol fans will let Donovan have it when he enters Thompson-Boling Arena tonight.  And Gator fans will be hoping Pearl’s career is eventually ruined by an angry NCAA enforcement department.  But the coaches don’t share their backers’ hostility.

From where I sit, that’s a good thing.  It’s good to see one SEC coach support another.  It sets a positive example for fans and hype-it-up media types across the South.

It might not make for flashy headlines and soundbites, but I can tell you I’d much rather cover two coaches showing class (as Donovan and Pearl have) than two coaches showing their asses (as Kiffin and Meyer did).