Double-‘Hoo Derek Dooley, a former UVA Football walk-on who made himself a big contributor to the 1990 team that spent three weeks at #1 in the national polls, is very publicly mulling a run for the Republican nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate representing Georgia.
The let’s be honest part of this story: Dooley, 56, is a player in this race at all because of name recognition, and not his own, but that of his father, the legendary UGA coach Vince Dooley.
The Dooley family is close to the sitting governor in Georgia, Brian Kemp, who has signaled that he will not make a run for the Senate nomination in the 2026 cycle.
Kemp, with a formidable political machine at his disposal, is working the phones for Dooley, though it’s being said that the push has “frustrated and pissed off” the president’s inner circle, because the Dear Leader, Donald Trump, apparently prefers either of the two MAGA congressmen, Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, who are angling for the nomination.
Republicans are foaming at the mouth at the chance to win the seat currently held by Democrat Jon Ossoff, who was elected in a 2021 runoff, upsetting the Republican incumbent, David Perdue.
National Republicans assume that Ossoff, 38, is vulnerable in Georgia, which went to Trump by a 2.2-point margin in 2024, though, reality check, Ossoff has a $15 million campaign warchest heading into the 2026 cycle, and there is an obvious headwind for Republicans going into the 2026 cycle.
Dooley, for his part, has no experience in government or politics, aside from his BA from UVA in government and foreign affairs.
The former walk-on had 41 catches in four seasons, from 1987-1990, with a career-high 27 catches for 422 yards and two TDs in 1990.
Dooley also has a law degree from UVA, earned in 1994.
He practiced law briefly before getting back into football, taking a job as a grad assistant at Georgia in 1996, then working his way up the coaching ladder.
You might remember him being in the mix for the UVA Football coaching job in 2009 after Al Groh was let go.
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He ended up taking the head coaching job at Tennessee, where he replaced Lane Kiffin.
Dooley only last three seasons at UT, all three with losing records, before moving on to a series of assistant positions in the SEC and NFL.
His name popped back up in UVA Football circles in 2021. An alum wrote to me to suggest that there was an effort, after Bronco Mendenhall stepped down as the head coach, to get Carla Williams to put Dooley on her short list.
ICYMI
I don’t think Dooley was a serious candidate the second time through.
As for this new politics thing, I’m not sure.
There’s the headwinds for Republicans in general looking ahead to 2026, and then the specific headwinds for a guy who really nobody knows anything about politically.
To that part of the story, the no political experience part of his resume is something that Dooley is trying to spin into a positive.
“Georgia deserves stronger common-sense leadership in the U.S. Senate that represents all Georgians and focuses on results – not headlines,” Dooley said in a statement. “I believe our state needs a political outsider in Washington – not another career politician – to cut through the noise and partisanship and get back to real problem solving.”
The outsider image that he’s trying to spin would seem to run counter to his close ties to Kemp, whose inner circle has flocked to Dooley as consultants.
Whereas you have Collins, announcing his campaign on Monday with a Trump-themed video, and Carter, whose social-media profile pics highlight the POTUS giving him a literal thumbs-up.
Could be, here, that the Kemp endorsement is a kiss of death for our guy.
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Chris Graham
