Not long ago, Derek Dooley was roaming the halls of the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility.
He was a senior offensive analyst for Alabama football in Nick Saban’s final two seasons with the Crimson Tide. Now, Dooley is running to become a U.S. senator.
“We need new leadership in Georgia,” Dooley said in a YouTube video. “That’s why I’m running for senate. I’m Derek Dooley. I’m going to work with President Trump, fight for you and always put Georgia first.”
Dooley will run as a Republican in a race where Sen. Jon Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent, is seeking a second term in office.
Dooley is the son of the late legendary Georgia coach Vince Dooley. Derek Dooley began his coaching career with Georgia in 1996 as a graduate assistant. Since then, he worked as a position coach at SMU, LSU and the Miami Dolphins before he became the head coach at Louisiana Tech and Tennessee.
The Vols fired Dooley in 2012. Then he joined the Dallas Cowboys as an assistant coach before returning to the college ranks where he was Missouri’s offensive coordinator from 2018-19. Before he joined the Alabama staff under Saban, Dooley worked for the New York Giants for two seasons. He has been out of coaching since 2023, his last year with Alabama.
Dooley running for senate mirrors a recent trend of coaches getting into politics. Former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville has been one of Alabama’s senators since 2021. And with Tuberville now set to run for governor of Alabama, Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl has been speculated as a potential candidate for Tuberville’s seat. Pearl, however, has not announced he is running.
Dooley’s stops at LSU, the Dolphins and Alabama all involved working for Saban. At the Nick Saban Legacy Award in 2023, Dooley talked about what Saban means to him.
“I sorta owe just about everything to Coach Saban as far as my career because he really taught me what it meant to be a football coach,” Derek Dooley said in Birmingham. “I was with him for seven years at a very impressionable time so it was great for me.”
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