South Carolina fans wore ‘Keep Butch Jones’ shirts at Tennessee during the Gamecocks win over the lowly Vols who may fire their head coach.
Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones seems destined to be fired sooner rather than later, which will come as a major relief for fans in Knoxville. However, not every fan in Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon will be happy to see him go.
Following back-to-back disastrous hires in Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley, the Volunteers decided to turn to Jones, who led the Cincinnati Bearcats to a combined 19 wins between 2011 and 2012. Jones initially built some goodwill in Knoxville with a number of terrific recruiting classes but has only reached a nine-win ceiling while failing to win the SEC East despite a number of traditional powers going through down periods.
Jones’ seat has gone from hot to scorching this season, as Tennessee sits at 3-3 with a Hail Mary loss to Florida, 41-0 destruction at the hands of Georgia and a narrow win over lowly UMass. Things got worse on Saturday with a 15-9 home loss to South Carolina that saw Tennessee rack up 253 yards of total offense and stall near the goal line in the dying moments.
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Of course, SEC East rivals wouldn’t mind seeing that type of effort continuing from Tennessee, which has the potential to be a powerhouse but has largely struggled since dismissing Phillip Fulmer in 2008. A few visiting South Carolina fans expressed their support for the embattled Jones by wearing t-shirts to Saturday’s contest at Neyland Stadium, via ESPN.
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) October 14, 2017
The Gamecocks have more reason than anyone to want Jones to stick around, as head coach Will Muschamp now owns a 4-0 record against the soon to be ex-Volunteers head coach and has won all six of his meetings against Tennessee overall. While they probably won’t get their wish with Tennessee’s fanbase bearing down harder on Jones by the week, give these Gamecocks credit for trying.