Now at Alabama, Derek Dooley has coached for multiple UGA rivals. 'It's awful' his mom says

Barbara Dooley couldn’t be there the last time Georgia football played Alabama.

That’s when the Bulldogs at long last ended a 41-year wait to once again celebrate a national championship.

Her husband, legendary coach Vince Dooley, shared an emotional hug with Kirby Smart on the field of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis afterwards.

She plans to be in Mercedes-Benz Stadium Saturday when the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide play again for the SEC championship. Her son, Derek Dooley, will be on the Alabama sideline.

“It’s awful,” Barbara said Sunday night after returning back to her Athens home after attending the Falcons win. “What can I say? It’s awful. Derek’s been at Tennessee. Derek’s been at LSU. Now he’s at Alabama. He’s killing my guts. I just decided I’m wearing all red Saturday.”

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Derek Dooley is in his second season as offensive analyst on Nick Saban’s support staff, the fifth SEC stop for Vince and Barbara Dooley’s youngest child.

Barbara will watch the game from a box with Mary Beth Smart, Kirby’s wife, and UGA athletic director Josh Brooks and his family.

She said she has not been to Tuscaloosa for an Alabama game while Derek has been there.

“You know Vincent would have never gone to an Alabama game,” Dooley said. “If Derek was maybe the offensive coordinator, but no, not as an analyst, no.”

Barbara Dooley, now 84, has continued to attend Georgia home games since Vince Dooley died at age 90 on Oct. 28, 2022. They were married for 62 years.

Derek Dooley was unavailable for an interview to talk about his Alabama role, per school policy for football staff members, but he spoke to the media in February when he accepted the Nick Saban Legacy Award for his father.

“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, according to AL.com. “I was with him for seven years at a very impressionable time so it was great for me.”

Saban hired Derek Dooley, who was a grad assistant at Georgia in 1996, from SMU to be his tight ends coach at LSU in 2000. He followed him to the Miami Dolphins where he worked in the 2005 and 2006 seasons, the last when Smart was also an assistant.

Dooley’s father and Smart spoke on the field and embraced with tears in their eyes more than 22 months ago when Georgia knocked off Alabama 33-18 on Jan. 10, 2022.

Barbara didn’t make the trip after testing positive for COVID two days before they were to leave.

“They wouldn’t let me on the plane,” she said.

She said it offered her son Daniel, who went with Vince a chance to spend quality time with his father.

Smart after the game spoke about seeing Vince Dooley at the team hotel while he awaited a key.

"I got off the elevator the other night and I thought it was a sign when the elevator opened on the 15th floor and Vince Dooley was sitting on a bench locked out of his room,” Smart said. “I thought, God put him there for me to see him the night before his game, and he was waiting on his key to come up to his room."

Smart put on a tie Vince Dooley wore on the sideline from his coaching days to his postgame press conference after beating Georgia Tech last November. It was one day after a Celebration of Life was held for Dooley.

"I asked Derek if I could, and he and Mrs. Barbara said they'd be honored if I wore this tie because it was a tie he wore for so many games,” Smart said then.

“Derek gave it to me, and I probably don't do the sweater and shirt the justice that he does."

Alabama’s support staff has been a landing spot for some high-profile names over the years including Steve Sarkisian (now Texas coach) and Mike Locksley (Maryland).

Former Louisville and Texas coach Charlie Strong currently is an analyst. So is former Georgia and LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger, who starred at Oconee County High.

Former Georgia quarterback Joe Cox, who worked with Bulldogs offensive coordinator Mike Bobo at Colorado State and South Carolina, is tight ends coach.

Derek Dooley, a Clarke Central graduate who is now 55, spent two seasons on staff with the New York Giants before coming to Alabama. Since being fired in 2012 after three seasons as Tennessee’s head coach, he was also wide receivers coach for the Dallas Cowboys and Missouri’s offensive coordinator.

“Derek Dooley is a coach’s coach,” Barbara Dooley said. “He loves the kids. He loves coaching and Derek has a law degree. He has been offered an AD job, but he wants to coach. I don’t get it. I’m sorry. He and I do not discuss this very often because I get riled up. He’s so friggin smart and I can’t keep saying, what are you waiting on? ‘Mom, I just want to coach.’”

She gets a chance to see Derek a lot.

“Now that Vincent has left us, he’s worried about me,” Barbara Dooley said. “He’s making more attempts to visit and he calls all the time, which I appreciate.”

They didn’t spend Thanksgiving together because Derek was getting ready for the Iron Bowl against Auburn. Barbara Dooley was at son Daniel’s house where the guests included Bobo’s father. Mike’s wife Lainie is Barbara’s niece.

Derek and his wife Allison have built what Barbara says they call “their permanent home,” on Lake Burton after 11 moves. Allison is an OB/GYN who plans to practice again, Barbara said.

Their son, JT, who was a walk-on at Georgia under Smart, is now a scout for the Cowboys. Son Peyton is a senior at the University of Chicago. Daughter Julianna is a sophomore at UGA.

Barbara Dooley wasn’t at the national championship win against Alabama, but made the trip to Los Angeles for the Bulldogs second straight title.

“That was my first attempt to go without Vincent,” she said. “It’s been hard, but I’m doing it.”

Georgia hasn’t lost since the SEC championship game two years ago to Alabama.

It carries an SEC-record 29-game winning streak into Saturday’s game and is seeking a third straight national title.

Barbara Dooley lived through a golden era of Georgia football in the early 1980s that included a national title and three straight SEC championships and now there is another one under Smart.

“We never expected it and it was like a gift dropped down on us,” Barbara said. “But Kirby has come in and everybody expects it, like, yeah, we’re getting it. Everybody’s thinking, yeah, we’re going to have a three-peat for sure. Well, it’s not that easy. They have no idea what Kirby’s done. He did inherit a lot of good players, he did. But let me tell you, a lot of coaches get good players. He made them not only even better but he made them champions. It’s just the damndest thing I’ve ever seen what he’s done.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Barbara Dooley on son at Alabama, Kirby Smart's run with UGA football