Leadership Reps: Power ranking the best Butch Jones cliches

If you like tact, nuance and originality, then this post isn’t for you. Here are the best redundant clichés that have ever come out of Butch Jones’ mouth.

Thinking differently is really, really hard. Sometimes you just need to spit out clichés to motivate 18 to 23-year-olds because, well, they just don’t know any better. Clichés have become a far too cringe-worthy part of the Butch Jones era of Tennessee Volunteers football. The redundancy in Knoxville is getting old and so is not getting to the SEC Championship.

Jones has to some degree brought stability to the Tennessee football program that Phillip Fulmer, one year of Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley drove into the ground. It’s going on 10 years since Rocky Top won the SEC East. With Jones’ 2017 team at 3-3 (0-3) on the year and facing its cross-divisional rival in No. 1 Alabama in Tuscaloosa in Week 8, there’s no chance Tennessee gets a win on the Third Saturday in October.

While Tennessee doesn’t understand that it’s not a 10-win program anymore, it’s beyond time to move on from Jones. He doesn’t win enough to keep Vol Nation happy. The perpetual redundant clichés he says just about every time he’s in front of a microphone makes him look less like a Power 5 coach with every syllable he utters.

So what we’re going to do is power rank the very, very best clichés that have ever been verbalized by Jones during his 4.5-year stint with the Volunteers. Why nine? Because nine is the most Jones number there is, as in nine wins, as in that’s all you’re getting out of a Jones-led Vols team. Let the redundancy and triteness begin!

9. It starts with…

“The sense of urgency, it starts with me. It starts with our coaching staff. It starts with our leaders. I’m responsible and I can promise you we’ll get to it. We’ll get to work and work to make the corrections.” – Jones after Tennessee lost on a 63-yard Hail Mary at the end of regulation to the Florida Gators in Gainesville on Sep. 16 

Okay. Where do we start? Jones is giving us three places where to place accountability on giving up a 63-yard Hail Mary at Florida in The Swamp in a huge SEC East rivalry game. Florida doesn’t have the offensive firepower to sustain drives with their lackluster quarterbacking room. All the Gators can do is live on a prayer and heave it to Tyrie Cleveland and hope for six.

There was zero reason to not drop back into prevent on that last play of the game. Why are you playing man-to-man on the road in a gotta have it rivalry game? Florida and Tennessee have essentially a hammer and nail rivalry in the SEC East, where Florida is the hammer and Tennessee is the nail. It’s one of those games where the loser sees its division title hopes vanish almost out of the gate.

Telling your fan base that it starts with you and then proceed to make your coaching staff and your players equally accountable is not very assuring. This is yet another example of Jones clearly not understanding the magnitude of a moment in a game.

Beating Florida in The Swamp would have set the tone for a season where Tennessee could have been 4-0 (1-0) and in the driver’s seat to win the SEC East. Saying that this devastating loss starts in three different places (Jones, coaches and players) is just ridiculous. You where it should have started? Playing prevent defense and not letting Feleipe Franks beat you on a Hail Mary in Gainesville.