UT Vols football coach may start at bottom of SEC but can rise quickly

No matter whom Tennessee hires as its football coach, it’s unlikely he will rank among the top five coaches in the SEC. In fact, he’s more apt to be ranked among the bottom three coaches.

However, that ranking can change quickly. Georgia coach Kirby Smart is proof of that.

In 2016, Smart’s first season as a head coach, he went 8-5. He even lost to Vanderbilt.

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And no one would have ranked him among the league’s top five coaches.

But how do you like him now?

I liked Smart enough to make him No. 1 on my Associated Press national coach of the year ballot.

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Smart had proved himself as a defensive coordinator under Nick Saban at Alabama. He also has distinguished himself as a recruiter, both as an assistant and in his limited time as a head coach.

After he led his second Georgia team to the SEC championship and a berth in the College Football Playoff, he now ranks among the league’s top five coaches. Alabama’s Nick Saban is obviously No. 1, new Texas A&M hire Jimbo Fisher is No. 2, based on what he did at Florida State; Florida’s Dan Mullen, Auburn’s Gus Malzahn and Smart round out the top five.

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Next come South Carolina’s Will Muschamp and LSU's Ed Orgeron, who are faring better in their second SEC head-coaching stint. Fired at Florida, Muschamp has put the Gamecocks in back-to-back bowl games. Orgeron was a disaster as Ole Miss’ head coach but has won nine games in his first season at LSU’s full-time head coach.

So much for the top half of SEC coaches.

The bottom half isn’t as impressive, though I’m curious to see how new Mississippi State coach Joe Moorhead will do with the talent Mullen left behind. Moorhead became one of the nation’s most acclaimed offensive coordinators at Penn State.

Missouri second-year coach Barry Odom gets some credit for the Tigers finishing the regular season on a six-game winning streak. But you have to wonder how a team with that much offensive talent started out 1-5 and couldn’t score a touchdown on Purdue.

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Mark Stoops has never won more than seven games in five seasons at Kentucky. In four seasons, Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason is 6-26 in SEC play.

Matt Luke went 6-6 as an interim head coach at Ole Miss this season. That was enough to get a full-time gig at a program whose hiring possibilities were limited by impending NCAA sanctions.

That leaves only Arkansas, which is currently as empty-handed as UT, though without all the national recognition for a wrongheaded coaching search.

If Tennessee hires someone with no head-coaching experience, he immediately will show up near the bottom when anyone ranks the SEC coaches one through 14. But that could change a year from now.

In fact, by the end of 2018, Tennessee could have one of the league’s top 10 coaches. 

John Adams is a senior columnist. He may be reached at 865-342-6284 or john.adams@knoxnews.com. Follow him at: Twitter.com/johnadamskns.