“She may pull for him all the way.”

At least Barbara Dooley’s keeping it to herself this go ’round.

SOD gets cranky.

Media members, don’t you be telling Derek Dooley what he’s got to work with this season.

“But until we start having All-Americans, all-conference players, it doesn’t matter that you started. You might have started by default, because we didn’t get anybody better than you. It doesn’t mean you’re good.

“We clear on that? With the starting deal? Starting pissing me off.”

Derek Dooley wants you to know he can’t fail this season.  He can only be failed by his starters.  They’ll probably wind up pissing him off, too.

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Regrets? SOD’s had a few.

This is how you wind up discussing your team’s shower hygiene with the media.

Just ahead of the team opening fall camp though, it seems Dooley is doing some opening up himself. In an excellent Q&A with the St. Louis Dispatch, the always colorful coach discussed a number of topics like becoming an athletic director to working for Nick Saban to doing a job that he hasn’t done before. Perhaps the most notable parts of the piece are, as one might expect, Dooley reflecting on his time with the Vols however and he does not disappoint in talking about what went wrong in Knoxville.

“The difference was at Louisiana Tech everybody listened to me and did what I said. At Tennessee very few people listened to me and most of them did something different than what I said. That’s how it is at a lot of big places when you don’t come in empowered as “the guy.” you have to learn how to manage those environments,” said Dooley. “That’s what frustrated me. You can’t even compare the two. You had a lot of division going on between (Phil) Fulmer, (Lane) Kiffin and fans. There was a lot of division on campus. It was a different environment, and I didn’t see it that way but should have.”

The truly befuddling part isn’t that Dooley didn’t see it coming, but that Mike Hamilton thought it was a good move to hire Dooley in the first place, seventh choice or not.

On the other hand, “Dooley did add that his three years at Tennessee were a “humbling” experience and has made him a better coach.”  So Missouri’s got that going for them.

SOD’s gonna SOD, y’all.

From the man who inspired shower hygiene mockery across a nation comes this…

Lock on Dooley: "He yelled at me one time for changing how my sandwich was ordered. He says the reason they’re putting it on the menu is because they’ve made it that way and they think that’s the exact way it should be eaten. … I’ve actually started doing that, and he’s right."

— Daniel Jones (@daniel_m_jones) July 18, 2018

Derek Dooley, renaissance man.

Today, in ringing endorsements

Hoo, boy.

The Cowboys have a new WRs coach, and Cole Beasley says it's "the first time we’re actually being taught how to run routes."

hmm wonder who his WRs coach was before now

oh it was Derek Dooley https://t.co/xnEmrO5YWZ

— SB Nation CFB (@SBNationCFB) June 12, 2018

SOD does bring a solid shower hygiene game with him, though.  So there’s that.

If it ain’t broke… eh, go ahead.

SOD’s a smart guy, so I guess KISS is a principle that doesn’t apply to him.

Through three weeks of spring practice, there’s no point using one catch-all phrase to define Derek Dooley’s offense that’s taking shape at Mizzou.<

The playbook is too cumbersome to file under one genre. Is it a spread offense? A pro-style model? A combination ? All of the above, and more.

“We’re throwing a lot at (the players), seeing what sticks,” said Dooley, the first-year coordinator, after Tuesday’s practice as the Tigers get closer to their April 14 Black and Gold game. “You kind of sling it up on the wall and whatever sticks you keep it going. You throw a little more on the wall, see what sticks and keep it going.”

Yeah, this is going to end well.

“I call it Wikipedia. That’s what it is right now, our offense.”

SOD is back, folks.

Derek Dooley is Missouri’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, which is interesting because Dooley has never been an offensive coordinator or a quarterbacks coach before.

“Interesting” would be one way of putting it.

“I call it Wikipedia. That’s what it is right now, our offense,” Dooley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Every day you can go on there and there’s a new sentence (and say), ‘Oh, I wonder who added that?”

In addition to Dooley, much of the Missouri offensive staff is also new. Offensive line coach Brad Davis was hired from Florida and wide receivers coach A.J. Ofodile was promoted from director of recruiting operations.

“The idea is I don’t want to just cram some system down them,” Dooley said. “Everything they do is brand new. We want to build on some things they did well here. We want to add some things to help us have a little flexibility in how we attack defenses.”

This is gonna be a fun watch.  I mean, what could go wrong?

SOD it, Missouri.

An alternate history, via Paul Myerberg’s Tennessee preview:

Tennessee was a few first downs, a third-down conversion, a fourth-down stop, a two-point conversion and an errant pass away from reaching bowl eligibility last fall, the program’s third year under ex-coach Derek Dooley. These missteps – a few of many on the year – all came in the second half against Missouri, a game the Volunteers gave away on the second Saturday of November.

Let’s say UT wins that game, doing one or two of the above to move to 5-5 with two games to play. Perhaps the Vols still lose to Vanderbilt; the Vols still beat Kentucky to reach six wins. Now, let’s say UT wins its bowl game to finish with seven victories. Let’s say the university sees enough progression to give Dooley another year – and that’s a stretch, but stick with me.

Meet the one loss that might have changed the entire future of Tennessee football: Missouri 51, Tennessee 48.

Damn it, Tigers!  Your first year in and that’s your legacy?  Barbara’s never gonna forgive you.

By the way, this line from Myerberg is Envy and Jealousy-worthy:  “Vanderbilt texted with friends as it toyed with the Vols in a 41-18 win.”

Tuesday morning buffet

Tasty nibblets abound this morning.

• Just when you thought the NCAA/Nevin Shapiro mess couldn’t get any weirder, it does.
• Pete Fiutak thinks SOD failed at UT because he “was way too nice and way too decent to be able to crush and kill in the cutthroat world of the SEC.”  So how come he had a losing record at La. Tech?
• Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find this list convincing.
• Mark Emmert goes on record saying a fourth college subdivision for the haves could work.
• Brian Cook looks at Big Ten recruiting and finds that Kentucky and Tennessee are wrecking havoc.
• Michael Elkon rips Tony Barnhart’s selection committee proposal.
• Wisconsin’s 2015 conference schedule is a piece of work.  At least fans will be able to stay home and see what’s on the Big Ten Network.

Delicate fee-fees in Knoxville

This is amusing on a number of levels:

… Former Vol players won’t miss Dooley either after they say he turned them away from attending practices and being connected to the program.

“No one expects red carpet but we do expect to be able to go watch spring practice,” said former UT QB Erik Ainge, who hosts a radio show on Tennessee Sports Radio 1180. Ainge said one time Dooley reached out to him to be his “spin doctor” in the media. “I sat in front of his office with his secretary and we talked for 45 minutes. I knew everybody over there better than he did. His dry cleaning wasn’t done properly, so he was making them re-starch his drycleaning. And I just sat there for 45 minutes.

“He made it really hard. Tennessee fans are begging for you to give ’em something to get excited about. It’s as much a part of the culture here in East Tennessee as anything. You got Dollywood and UT. He made it really hard even for the die-hards to get on board.”

SOD evidently never learned the first rule of head coaching:  It’s okay to be an asshole.  As long as you’re winning.