Tennessee nominated Danny White as its athletics director on Friday.
White comes to Tennessee from the University of Central Florida.
During White’s introductory press conference, he discusses his process of looking for Tennessee’s next football coach.
“Ideally, in the age of social media and everything, it starts and ends with student-athletes,” White said. “I got it right in all three of my football searches.”
As athletics director at Buffalo, White hired Lance Leipold away from his alma mater, Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he won six NCAA Division III national championships (2007, 2009–2011, 2013–2014).
White has appointed Scott Frost as head coach at UCF.
When Frost left for the same position at his alma mater, Nebraska, after a 13-0 2017 season, White appointed Josh Heupel. Heupel came from Missouri to UCF as the attacking coordinator and coach of the Tigers.
White said he only wants to communicate with his student-athletes when he has to appoint a head coach.
“I want them to be the first to find out who their new coach is,” White said. ‘What happens in between, there’s a lot going on. I’m going to do a lot of homework. I spent a lot of time doing research and calling. I’m lucky to have a pretty important network in intercollegiate athletics, and I realize it’s probably because of the way I grew up. I can get a candidate’s opinion of people and really understand who it is from a character perspective. I do not even want to interview someone if I have questions about it.
‘We need to make sure that the person we teach to run our program is going to do it the right way, get it right by these kids and have an aggressive vision to make us very competitive – so I do not know if I more detail than it can offer because it is a fairly fluid situation. ‘