Former Georgia football coach Vince Dooley guided the Bulldogs to 201 victories and six SEC titles in 25 seasons, but his most lopsided defeat came to Nebraska in the 1969 Sun Bowl.DEREK LYING LOWIt has been a quiet few weeks for Derek Dooley since he was fired Nov. 18 as Tennessee’s football coach. Vince Dooley said his son will continue to take some down time before deciding what to do next.”I think that’s what he’s going to do, and he can afford to,” Dooley said. “The good thing about the lack of patience in this day and time is that you have time. If I had been fired early on, I would have had to go to work the next day. I would have had to find a job anywhere, even a part-time job just to keep going.”I made $12,000 a year, so I would have definitely had to go to work another job that very next day.”Due to a $5 million buyout that will be paid over the next four years, the younger Dooley is receiving nearly $105,000 a month from Tennessee.- David Paschall
The Capital One Bowl was not Georgia’s desired destination when the Bulldogs played the Southeastern Conference football championship game earlier this month.
It was Georgia’s opponent for the New Year’s Day game in Orlando that made Vince Dooley cringe. Dooley coached the Bulldogs to a 201-77-10 record from 1964 to ’88, amassing six SEC titles and the 1980 national championship. The worst loss he sustained in his quarter century on the sideline was a 45-6 drubbing at the hands of Nebraska in the 1969 Sun Bowl.
“Neither one of us should have been in that bowl game,” Dooley recalled this past week. “We weren’t good enough to be there, and they were too good to be there. Their team had a slow start and caught fire, and that team was the nucleus of their next two national championship teams.
“Coach [Bob] Devaney told me later that his ’69 team at the end of the season was as good or better than his two national championship teams those next two years.”