Today, multiple sources broke the news that John Currie would be relieved of his duties as the University of Tennessee Athletic Director. This comes on the heels of the controversy involving Greg Schiano, which left Currie as a bad guy, Schiano as an enabler of child predators and the Tennessee fan base as an angry mob.
Schiano was simply the first (second, if you count #Grumors) step in the coaching search nightmares for Currie, also. The full list thus far has been summed up pretty well by the bigwigs running the Twitter account.
So, to recap:#Grumors
Schiano
Campbell
Brohm
Morris
DoerenMissing anyone?
— Student Union Sports (@StudentUSports) November 30, 2017
And now there is another name to add to the list since YESTERDAY when this tweet was published. Mike Leach was interested, interviewed and was on the verge of potentially signing. This is when the news of the Currie firing broke. According to McMurphy:
Sources: John Currie was prepared to hire Mike Leach but university officials wouldn’t allow him to do so. Phillip Fulmer has been sabotaging search process in hopes to become Tennessee’s AD
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 1, 2017
Essentially, Tennessee is in a state of violent dumpster fire right now. The last few years have been marred by failure with Butch Jones at the helm of the team, but what is occurring now is far more embarrassing and detrimental to the program.
John Currie is not to blame in this situation. As a matter of fact, he did his job to the best of his abilities under some extremely dire circumstances. Following the failed Schiano hire, which was a good one, he was forced to give in to the fan base’s wishes. From that moment, he has tried time and time again to bring in the best guy. Instead, he is facing a situation shown clearly by McMurphy through another source:
Another source: Tennessee’s own people have been ambushing (John) Currie’s (coaching search). They shoot themselves in the foot, cock the gun & shoot themselves in the other foot. It’s been going on for a week"
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) December 1, 2017
And really none of this is surprising at all. The Tennessee homers don’t even know how to insult someone. They don’t even know when they’ve been absolutely OWNED:
So Currie is out, but I doubt it is very upsetting to him. He is a respected director and will hopefully get a job somewhere else, somewhere where he will not be made a villain of. Somewhere where he will be able to do his job without being impeded by a completely insane fan base.