Leadership Reps: Power ranking the best Butch Jones cliches
By John Buhler
4. Brick by Brick
“The brick by brick campaign or motto, it’s not some fancy slogan. It really is everything when you look about everything in building a football team or an organization or a club. It’s about having a solid foundation.” – Jones before his first season with Tennessee football back in July 2013.
This is where every incoming head coach who is over his skis gets in trouble when overtaking a blue-blood program. You never utter “brick by brick” when you take over a prestigious job like this. What it implies is that the bricks (the men and legacies before you) aren’t any good.
It’s about as redundant of a cliché as you can get. If you think about what “brick by brick” entails, it’s insulting and alienating to the long-time fans and boosters of the program. Sure, you could use the “brick by brick” mantra if you’re taking over a terrible football program at a basketball school, but not at a place like Tennessee.
The Volunteers have one of the richest football traditions in the sport. It’s a top-10 program all-time. Before Derek Dooley drove the thing into the ground, when has Tennessee football ever been terrible?
Spitting out “brick by brick” nonsense meant that Jones didn’t understand the temperature of the room from the jump. This isn’t a doormat program in the MAC, this is Tennessee football. Few college coaches get the opportunity to take over at a traditional power like Tennessee. The reason Tennessee is a traditional power is the men before Jones weren’t rebuilding it “brick by brick.”