The CheckerBoard

This! If you have someone that's out of coaching right now, ASAP so they can recruit. (Highly unlikely though) Other than that, I believe in not delaying the inevitable but I think they'll announce the Sunday after the KY game that Dooley is gone. I hope Hart has a coach in place by then.

The only thing that matters is it must be a quality hire. We've gone down this road before and we should not make the same mistakes again. I do not think we'll need to worry about a bowl game being coached. If Hart doesn't have a good coach lined up by now, i wonder about him. We must obtain a high level coach that can recruit in Tennessee, GA, Fla, etc. I don't think we'd be talking about firing a coach today if we could recruit quality players. Today I watched our players do things that are not fundamentally sound. Two dbs leave a receiver when a qb scrambles for a joke of a wide open touchdown. Who does that every week? Tennessee Speed would make us a better team. That is the reason we got the recruits, they were slow and no other good team wanted them. Until recruiting improves, we won't. The wrong coach will not improve recruiting. If you're just wanting a coach, I think Auburn has one available.

Serious question. How is he protecting the players by waiting?

no can / will be named until some point after the Kentucky game. the only possibility would be naming someone out of coaching and that is not going to happen. Lot of work can still be accomplished toward a new coach without making an announcement on Dooley.

Personally, I would like to see the announcement as soon as possbile. I just think the fans and program would feel better with the clarity an official announcement would bring. There is no doubt, Dooley will not be back.. I can't imagine players don't know that and I don't think announcing makes much difference to them att his juncture. But, that is just my opinion

While I personally would rather a press conference called tomorrow to get it over with, I do understand why they would want to wait.

The reason is this. We are not going to have someone in place immediately after the Kentucky game and if we did I am not sure I would want them anyway. The premier coaches we should be talking to are in the midst of finishing out there seasons with their kids. They aren't going to hop on a plane to Knoxville when they are in the midst of trying to push for a good bowl. So, we won't be talking to any of those guys until the season ends.

As far as them preparing for a bowl? A new hired coach rarely coaches the new team in a bowl. They usually have a completely different system so they don't want to screw up the system before a bowl game. It will be an interim coach who does that duty. Plus, the new HC will be busy trying to evaluate who he wants to retain on the staff and who will be let go. Not really any time for trying to coach up kids for a bowl.

The appropriate timetable, IMO, is letting Dooley go whenever (UK at the latest) and having a new HC in two to three weeks so he can begin talking to the recruits and save whatever class we have left.

Judging by how often we win in the next game after firing a coach (Fulmer and Wyoming, Pearl and Michigan), I'd rather do it after Vandy since there's close to no way we lose to Kentucky

We don't lost anything by waiting until Kentucky. Let the seniors play out the year with their coach, hopefully get two more wins, and then have some one ready to come in whocantake the program to the next level.

I may be wrong, but tOSU had Urban while Luke Fickle was still coaching.

We need to act fast.

I think that Hart has to be extremely careful with the firing, especially after the Pat Summit debacle and the fact that Dooley is a lawyer. I think with those things in mind, he needs to be relieved ASAP or publicly known that he has through the end of the season. Hart needs time to interview and make things "legal" for the due process.