re: Did Tennessee

He had to approach it differently. He didnt give out offers to just anyone, so he wouldnt have to pull them later if someone better came around. He had to focus on going after bigger recruits, and came up 2nd a lot. Green to MI, Kamara to bama, Santos to UTx, to name some. Butch wouldnt have had Kamara if it werent for what Dooley did.

Also, kiffin depleted the roster. Dooley had like 65 players, so he was constantly rebuilding at all positions. He started his first season with no QBs on the roster that had been on the season prior. He had freshman Bray and jcc transfer matt simms. Kiffin pulled the scholys from Taj Boyd, and Bryce Petty that Fulmer had set up.

Thanks to kiffin Dooley also was down 2 schollys for 2 yrs from the ncaa. So when you are down to 65, and have 23 scholleys a year you have to approach recruiting differently than say butch who was able to offer 30-35 for 2 straight yrs.

Dooley had a complete disaster he took over. What jones walked into was nothing close to what Dooley did. He wasn't liked by some HS coaches that may have wanted to have their arses kissed, and same for players. He didnt carry on what kiffin was doing, and promising. Which hurt him with bryce brown leaving. Dooley also had to kick his best player off the team prior to starting the season 2 yrs in a row. Janzen Jackson, and then Da'rick Rogers. UT was a hot mess then.

The Dooley era was an interesting study. One I havent seen at any other school during my time.

dude... you new at this?

I grew up in GA. With the exception of the occasional Aubie or Tech fan, it's overwhelmingly UGA

Granted, I grew up there a while ago and it wasn't in Atlanta

UT recruiting classes ranked as follows on 24/7 for Dooley and Jones:

Dooley Era - average ranking 13th
2010 - 7th (remember...he only got the job 2 weeks prior...much of the work was actually done by Kiffin's staff)

2011 - 14th

2012 - 19th

Jones Era - average ranking 13.4
2013 - 25th (Jones had been on the job about 2 months)

2014 - 7th

2015 - 4th

2016 - 14th

2017 - 17th


So that is every class under Jones and Dooley...let's compare that to Fulmer's last 5 classes and Kiffin's class:

Kiffin's class
2009 - 8th (Kiffin had been on the job for about 2 months)

Fulmer's last 5 classes - average ranking 16th


2004 - 11th

2005 - 4th

2006 - 29th

2007 - 4th

2008 - 33rd


Compare that to Fulmer's recruiting classes the 4 seasons prior (2000 is as far back as 24/7 goes):


Fulmer's classes '00 - '03 - Average class ranking 5th

2003 - 10th

2002 - 3rd

2001 - 4th

2000 - 1st

So Tennessee has been on a pretty consistent trajectory since Fulmer got comfortable and stopped focusing as much energy in recruiting (his last 5 years).

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Also, kiffin depleted the roster. Dooley had like 65 players, so he was constantly rebuilding at all positions.

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The roster was depleted after Kiffin's departure...I wouldn't say that Kiffin depleted the roster. A lot of kids left to go somewhere else when Kiffin and crew went to Cali.