Vols Coaching Search Day 1: Tennessee Was Reportedly Handing Out Cash in McDonald's Bags to Recruits

At the press conference announcing the firing of Jeremy Pruitt and nine other football staff members, we heard UT Chancellor Donde Plowman made the situation with the NCAA sound pretty dire. And for a Power Five coach to be fired in mid-January and still in the throes of a pandemic, that probably checks out.

Well, we're in the first full-fledged day of the Tennessee Coaching Search: 2021 Edition and we already have a report from Dan Patrick that UT staff members were doling out cash to recruits in McDonald's bags. And given the fact that we just fired half our football staff for cause and the fact that there is nothing that is too ridiculous for Tennessee, I'm inclined to believe it.

Here's what I want to know: we hired Pruitt and Brian Niedermeyer — one of the two on-field assistants fired for cause yesterday — from Alabama. These guys worked under Saban for years. And the best they could come up with was McDonald's bags of cash? I think anyone with a functioning brain knows the best players in the country aren't going to Alabama for free when they're getting offers like this from Tennessee — and everybody else. So we hired guys who should have been the best cheaters in the country and turned out to be the worst. That is the most Vols luck I've ever heard of.

Just in terms of content, I'm actually even more excited about this coaching search than any one before, because it comes with a bonus investigation. The amount of dirt that is going to come out in the next few weeks is going to be incredibly detrimental to my school's football program but incredibly beneficial for my job.

This is just Day One, y'all. It's going to be a wild ride to the finish line.