Butch Jones fired at Tennessee
The University of Tennessee finally fired Butch Jones, making an attractive head football coaching position vacant in the SEC.
The Tennessee Volunteers are without a head coach, after the administration decided to move on from Butch Jones, firing him on Sunday morning, per Bruce Feldman. Jones has been embattled throughout the season, one year removed from a 9-4 campaign that ended with a win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl.
Jones was given the job back in 2013 after being the head coach at Central Michigan and Cincinnati, and appeared to have the program going in the right direction. In 2015 and 2016, Jones won nine games each year with rosters that featured ample NFL talent, including Joshua Dobbs and Alvin Kamara. Instead, things soured over time with Jones’ program stagnating.
BREAKING Butch Jones is out as #Vols head coach, source tells me. He just informed his staff.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) November 12, 2017
Tennessee is one of the worst power conference teams in the land this year, sitting at 4-6 overall and 0-6 in the SEC. Many have been waiting for this firing for weeks, believing it would surely come after the Volunteers lost to the Georgia Bulldogs, 41-0, back on Sept. 30.
Next: SEC Programs Ranked By Statistical Greatness
Instead, Jones was kept on for another month and a half, with the final straw being a humiliating 50-17 defeat to the Missouri Tigers. With Jones out, Tennessee will likely go through the rest of the year with an interim head coach before trying to find a permanent solution.
The Volunteers will finish out their regular-season slate with home dates against the LSU Tigers and Vanderbilt Commodores. It would takes wins in both games to get Tennessee into a bowl game for the fourth consecutive year.