The year was 2011. Dave Hart, an Alabama guy, was about to take on the biggest mess he could inherit.
Tennessee football had just finished with three head coaches in three years and no Top 25 finishes since 2007. Tennessee basketball was entering its first season after the Bruce Pearl fiasco. The school was under investigation by the NCAA. Pat Summitt had just announced her dementia. And the Vols sports programs were operating at a deficit.
These were all the things waiting on Hart’s desk when he took the job at the beginning of that school year.