No More Butch, Please
Butch Jones is a nice guy who shouldn’t be the head football coach at the University of Tennessee. The Vols are finally in position to make a big-time hire and take their place among the elites of college football, and they need to take advantage of the opportunity before it disappears.
Even after beating Florida for the first time in over a decade and Georgia for the second year in a row, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that Jones is in over his head. Following an embarrassing loss to a very bad South Carolina team on Saturday, a cryptic tweet from Jonathan Kongbo, and rumblings of a players-only meeting late on Sunday, news broke Monday morning that junior running back Jalen Hurd is leaving the team, and plans not only to transfer but also to switch positions entirely.
There are a lot of directions I could go with this article; I could cite offensive struggles, bad hires, lack of player development, bad records against SEC and ranked teams, or atrocious in-game decision making as reasons that Jones shouldn’t be the Vols’ head man. But the number one reason that he needs to go is that it’s apparent he doesn’t have control over his team; they don’t respect him as a coach.
If Kongbo indeed does leave, he and Hurd will make it three former 5-star recruits who have left the program in the last month (WR Preston Williams rounds out the group).
The Hurd transfer is the deal breaker here. The back was just over 400 yards from being the all-time rushing leader at one of ESPN’s Top 15 Most Prestigious CFB Programs, as a JUNIOR. He went from pre-season Heisman candidate to thinking his best option was to transfer and play tight end. That’s mind-blowing. It’s not something that you ever see in college football, and it can be attributed to leadership issues.
True, this all seems very sudden; three weeks ago UT was 5–0 and fans were talking about the playoff. But let’s take a step back, and look at the big picture here.
Anyone with any wits has always known that Jones wasn’t ever the man who would turn Tennessee into a perennial contender, which is, for better or worse, what Vol fans expect. As much as UT supporters hate the notion that they always want to fire their coaches, they always knew it would take one more hire to put them in the upper echelon of football programs. Jones deserves credit for bringing the program back into the national spotlight and putting together great recruiting classes, but 9–4 every year was never going to be enough.
Butch Jones is Mark Jackson, and it’s time for Tennessee to find a Steve Kerr.
Neyland Stadium is the fifth largest in the nation, and Vol football players produce the third most money per year per player in the nation, behind only Texas and Alabama. If Tennessee is willing to shell out enough money, their roster is in good enough shape for them to go get a big name like Bobby Petrino, Tom Herman, or Chip Kelly. This hasn’t been the case in the past. Tennessee is cool again, which makes it the perfect time to go hire the big one.
Here’s the catch: Despite all of the issues with Jones as a coach, there’s still a very real situation where Tennessee makes the SEC Championship. Unless the Vols lose to Missouri or Tennessee Tech this year, Jones isn’t going to get fired. But heisn’t deaf to all of the criticism he’s getting from Vol Nation today; it’s very possible that he’ll decide to cut his losses and resign at the end of the season before things get too ugly, but it’s not something to count on.
At the end of the day, things are probably going to be okay in Knoxville. The fans will calm down after the Vols get back into the win column against TTU. But this could be the best opportunity for the UT athletic department to make a big-time move by securing a top-tier coach.
It would not take long for Tennessee to once again get pigeon-holed as a mediocre destination to coaches and recruits alike.
The question is, is UT AD Dave Hart is smart enough to recognize the window of opportunity and bold enough to force Butch out to make a big boy coaching hire? Or is Tennessee doomed to what could be many years of 8–4 seasons under the Jones regime?
No matter what happens at the end of this year, it’s becoming increasingly evident that Butch Jones is not the long term solution for the football program at the University of Tennessee.
