Tennessee Football: Disastrous coaching search costs AD John Currie his job
By Jesse Smith
After one of the worst coaching searches in recent memory, Tennessee football is still without a leader and now AD John Currie is without a job.
If you haven’t been following the coaching search for the Tennessee Volunteers, you have been missing out on grade A entertainment. If you are a Volunteer fan you are probably popping Tums like Skittles because of the daily heartburn this situation has caused.
During the season, head coach Butch Jones was fired after leading the program to an 0-6 record in the SEC. The SEC is arguably one of the best conferences in the nation, so after a huge underachievement, the Volunteers canned their coach and now they have fired their athletic director, John Currie.
In the great world of Twitter a few heavy hitters tweeted out about Currie’s firing:
Just filed to ESPN: Tennessee has parted ways with AD John Currie on the heels of what has been a disastrous Tennessee coaching search. He met with university officials on Friday morning, and the decision was made then.
— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) December 1, 2017
Sources: John Currie was prepared to hire Mike Leach but university officials wouldn’t allow him to do so. Phillip Fulmer has been sabotaging search process in hopes to become Tennessee’s AD
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 1, 2017
Currie had a deal to bring Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano to Knoxville, but it was met with a ton of backlash and the search as a whole has been a dumpster fire ever since.
They tried to get Mike Gundy from Oklahoma State, Jeff Brohm from Purdue and Dave Doeren from NC State, but to no avail. Word is all three turned down the job and Currie had Washington State’s Mike Leach on board, but now Currie is no longer the athletic director at Tennessee.
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Honestly, I don’t know who would touch this job currently — will they get an athletic director or a coach first? So many questions and not enough answers for the Tennessee program. Who will be the next Jones? Who will be the next Currie? I know it has been an entertaining search that just keeps getting better by the minute.