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Tuesday, November 10, 2026Nov 10

Vince Dooley calls Tennessee ‘good experience’ for Derek

Former Georgia football coach Vince Dooley speaks with a Confederate general's coat around his shoulders at the dedication of the Atlanta Campaign Heritage Trail on May 10, 2014, at the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center in Tunnel Hill, Ga.
Former Georgia football coach Vince Dooley speaks with a Confederate general's coat around his shoulders at the dedication of the Atlanta Campaign Heritage Trail on May 10, 2014, at the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center in Tunnel Hill, Ga. Former Georgia football coach Vince Dooley speaks with a Confederate general's coat around his shoulders at the dedication of the Atlanta Campaign Heritage Trail on May 10, 2014, at the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center in Tunnel Hill, Ga.

It’s been 12 years since Vince Dooley was Georgia’s athletic director and 27 years since he roamed the sideline for the Bulldogs, yet he remains well-versed in the changing landscape of college football.

Dooley was a guest Tuesday on “Press Row” on Chattanooga’s ESPN 105.1 FM.

photo 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.
photo UT coach Derek Dooley talks to the media in 2011 after an Orange and White game at Neyland Stadium.

Q: Georgia now knows where its indoor practice facility is going but will be the last school in the SEC to have one. Has that hindered the program?

A: “I don’t think so, but I think it would if you were not moving forward with one. I had plans drawn up, ironically, that are being drawn up right now in the same location. The only problem with the plans I had was that the building was a little too high and obtrusive, and that was an issue. My next move was to move it to the baseball field and move the baseball field out somewhere else.

“What is being done to solve that issue is to lower the size of the building so it won’t be as obtrusive, but it is absolutely in the same place that we had plans for it.”