Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, John Currie's internal discussions during his ill-fated search for the next Tennessee head coach has now been made public. It was a situation never before seen in college sports, when fake news incited an online mob to rush the castle and upend Currie's hiring of Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano. We peeked inside the business side of Currie's search earlier today, and now let's take a look at the mob.
As you already know, the fan base was strongly, strongly, stroooongly against the Schiano hire. And, yes, there was definitely a share of ugly emails. Like this one:
Some dudes sensed the opportunity to use Currie's misfortune as their chance at comedy.
Others were short and sweet. Well, maybe not sweet. But they were short.
But most of them were respectful. People stated their affiliation with the university, said their peace and got out of the way.
It goes on and on and on from there. Beginning the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 26 and exploding from there, Currie received more than 2,200 emails, almost all of them against the Schiano hiring, and almost all of those bringing up Schiano's unproven connection to the Penn State scandal. (There were also plenty of anti-Dave Doeren emails, too.) And none of this touches Currie's social media mentions.
As Tennessee's AD, it was Currie's job to select the Vols' next head football coach. He selected Schiano. But as Schiano Sunday rolled on, it was undeniable the Big Orange fanbase took that choice out of his hands.