Former Tennessee Football Coach Enters Georgia Senate Race As Republican

Former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley threw his hat in the ring as a Georgia GOP senatorial candidate for 2026 on Monday.

Dooley, 57, the son of famed University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, obtained his law degree from the University of Georgia and briefly practiced law before turning to football, where he became head coach at Louisiana Tech, then Tennessee before serving as an assistant coach with the Dallas Cowboys, the University of Missouri, the New York Giants and the University of Alabama.

Dooley is backed by Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who declined to run for the Senate seat to replace Democrat Jon Ossoff, who won his seat in 2020.

“The only thing that matters to me is that people of Georgia are proud of who’s representing them in Washington, D.C.,” Dooley said in his campaign launch video. “President Trump campaigned on things and he’s turned them into results; I haven’t known a president in my lifetime who’s been able to achieve these kind of results. That’s what the people want; they want somebody who means what they say, say what they mean, and then go deliver results.”

Turning to Ossoff, he declared, “Professional politicians like Jon Ossoff are the problem. Lawlessness, open season on the border, inflation everywhere, woke stuff, that’s what they represent. We need new leadership in Georgia. That’s why I’m running for Senate.”

Dooley’s chief rival for the GOP senatorial nod is Congressman Mike Collins, who has gained endorsements from various Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

At the end of March, a non-partisan ethics watchdog, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), filed a complaint against Ossoff, accusing him of violating Senate ethics rules by directly linking official action to a request for campaign contributions.

FACT sent a letter to Ethics Committee Chairman Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Vice-Chairman Chris Coons (D-DE) in which they stated:

On March 14th, 2025, Senator Ossoff sent out an email that contained only two subjects: (1) that he planned to vote against a specific bill; and (2) a request for a campaign contribution. The email began with the statement, “I will vote ‘NO’ on the Trump/Musk/Johnson ‘CR.’” Following several statements about the bill, he then makes a direct request for a campaign contribution: “If you can afford it, please rush $5 to Jon Ossoff’s re-election campaign today. If you’ve stored your info with ActBlue, we’ll process your contribution instantly.” 

“Senate Ethics Rules specifically prohibit Senators from soliciting campaign contributions based upon any action taken in their official capacity,” the letter continued. “By linking a promise of official action with campaign contributions, a Senator violates a ‘basic principle’ of Senate Ethics that guards against conflicts of interest.”

Additionally, Ossoff, who is Jewish, voted in favor of a resolution to block the sale of some weapons to Israel in November 2024, and last week voted against selling U.S. automatic assault rifles to Israel, and joined other anti-Israel Democrats in blaming the Israeli government – and not the terrorist group Hamas – for starving the people of Gaza. He said, “I do not believe the United States Senate should acquiesce without objection to the extreme mass deprivation of civilians in Gaza, including the intolerable starvation of children, that have resulted from the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.”