Derek DooleyAt about 10:40 EDT this morning, third-year Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley will be interviewed by 1,100 media types at the annual Southeastern Conference preseason gathering in Hoover, Ala.
Whether any of that group asks him, the biggest question among those folks will be whether Dooley will still be the Big Orange boss this time next year.
Fair or not, that’s what happens when your first two seasons end with losing records and the only two SEC East schools you’ve beaten in those two autumns are perennial pushovers Kentucky and Vanderbilt.
To make that worse, you’re only 3-1 against those guys, UK snapping a 26-game losing streak against your program last November while playing a senior wideout at quarterback, a position the willowy Matt Roark hadn’t manned since high school.
And the Wildcats have been so disappointing under their own third-year coach, Joker Phillips, that the only coaching seat in the league as hot as Dooley’s may be Joker’s.