On January 15, 2010, Athletic Director Mike Hamilton announced the appointment of Derek Dooley, athletic director and head football coach at Louisiana Tech University, replacing the departed Lane Kiffin. The announcement came after a brief search and reported rejections from Texas’ Will Muschamp, Air Force’s Troy Calhoun, and Duke’s David Cutcliffe.
Dooley, son of University of Georgia Coach Vince Dooley and radio talk show host Barbara Meshad Dooley, played high school football at Clarke Central High School in Athens and was a star tight end on Clarke’s 1985 AAAA State Championship team. He was a walk-on wide receiver at the University of Virginia and earned a scholarship after his second season. UVA went to three bowl games and won the 1989 ACC championship while he was on the team. In 1990 he was named first-team Academic All-ACC and participated in the Senior Bowl.
Dooley earned the BA from UVA in 1990 and the JD degree from the University of Georgia Law School in 1994. He practiced law at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in Atlanta before starting his coaching career.
He began his coaching career with a one-year graduate assistantship at the University of Georgia in 1996. He served as wide receivers coach at Southern Methodist University from 1977 to 1999 and was also the assistant recruiting coordinator for SMU. He was recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach at LSU 2000–2 and then LSU’s running backs and special teams coach in 2003–4. In 2005 he was named to the coaching staff of the Miami Dolphins by Nick Saban, who had left LSU to become head coach of the Dolphins. In December 2006 he was hired as head coach at Louisiana Tech University and was additionally named athletics director at Louisiana Tech in 2008. His record at Louisiana Tech was 17-20 overall, and 12-12 in conference games.
Tennessee started the 2010 season 2-6 but won their last four games to become bowl-eligible and lost in the Music City Bowl to North Carolina on the last play of the game. In 2011 Tennessee finished 5-7, losing the last game of the season to Kentucky and ending a 26-game winning streak against the Wildcats. It was the first time since 1910–11 that Tennessee had finished with losing back-to-back records. In 2012 UT lost to Florida after being in control of the game for the majority of time. They then lost six of the nine remaining games. A loss to Missouri featured a questionable call by Dooley to play overtime rather than playing for a winning field goal. That call cost Tennessee the victory. An 18-41 loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville was Dooley’s final game as head coach. He was fired November 18, effective immediately, and did not coach the final game of the season. During his tenure Tennessee had three back-to-back losing seasons. At Tennessee, Dooley was 15-21 overall and 4-19 against conference teams.
On February 5, 2013, the Miami Dolphins hired Dooley as their wide receivers coach.