How it all went wrong for Butch Jones at Tennessee

Here’s how it all went so wrong for Butch Jones at Tennessee after a promising start.

John Currie and the University of Tennessee’s administration have decided to fire Butch Jones. The choice to drop Jones comes after a season filled with crushing losses and years of coaching malpractice.

Lyle Allen Jones became the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers after the previous two coaches, Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley, effectively ran the program into the ground. Kiffin, although a great coach, left the Volunteers standing at the altar during a rebuild. While Tennessee fans could largely understand Kiffin’s early departure, Derek Dooley’s complete mismanagement of the program led to a pure distaste of the man with an SEC great for a father.

Tennessee then hired Jones, who came into the program saying and doing all the right things. Beginning in 2014, Jones secured multiple elite recruiting classes for the Vols. Fans were passionate about Tennessee again, and things were going well for a little while. The pinnacle of Jones’ time at Tennessee was his massive upsets of Georgia and Florida. He broke an 11 game win streak for the Gators against the Vols while winning on an epic Hail Mary against Georgia in 2016.

Jones took a historical powerhouse mid-derailment and managed to hold the wheels on the tracks for four shaky years. Jones did his job. Tennessee hired him to stabilize the program.

He did not leave the cupboard empty for the next guy, but he did have his own share of problems. From an outside perspective, Jones seems to be given the benefit of the doubt. Prominent national media members and coaches alike constantly raved about the up-and-comer that was Jones. But if you ask those who have their ears closest to the ground – the fans – the story is deeper than a lack of winning.

Let’s travel back in time to the 2012 Tennessee football season when Derek Dooley was the coach. In 2012, Dooley’s Volunteers walked off the field to end the season with a 5-7 record (1-7 in conference). Even with big names and future NFL players like Cordarrelle Patterson and Justin Hunter, Dooley couldn’t make a bowl game.

Tennessee had only missed a bowl game twice in the previous couple decades of college football. Still clinging to the first-ever BCS National Champion label and dominance of the college football landscape during the 1990’s, the Volunteer fanbase thought they deserved better.

If you look at the history of Tennessee football, the proof is overwhelmingly in support of the fans being correct on this one. Tennessee is ranked 12th in total wins of all football programs, and if you take out Harvard, Yale and Penn, they move into the ninth spot. On top of pure wins, the Volunteer program ranks top ten in total first round draft picks. Tennessee is also one of only two teams to have never lost eight games in a season (Ohio State is the other). In almost every list that helps compare top football programs, Tennessee is in the conversation. While clearly not a top-five program in the nation, the Vols and Vol fans alike rightly claim their prominence on the national stage.

Derek Dooley got the ax after Tennessee lost to Kentucky for the first time in three decades, and the players had proven to quit on their former college coach. Of course, it turned out that Dooley had done his best Lane Kiffin impression on the future recruiting classes of Tennessee by refusing to recruit or sign a single offensive lineman that year. Add that disaster to the already crumbling rapport between Dooley and the fans, and it was a recipe for a new coach.

After the Dooley era, Tennessee fans, administrators and boosters were forced to reexamine the way they looked at Tennessee football. That’s when the split happened. That’s when half the fan base chose to believe in the future and half the fan base chose to settle for mediocrity.

Whether the Haslam family, administrators or other boosters changed the culture in Knoxville after Dooley left is still up for debate, but something changed massively. No longer did the University look at the athletic department in the same way again. Before that 2012 season, the athletic department and university shared an existence they recognized as fruitful for all parties. After, those same parties seemed to suffer a schism as a new athletic director, Dave Hart, finished up his first year running one of the most profitable athletic departments in the nation.

This schism tore fans apart and pitted brother against brother as a new era of athletics at the University of Tennessee was ushered in. This new version of Tennessee football was to be led by newly hired former Cincinnati coach Butch Jones.

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At the end of the day, the Tennessee Volunteer fan base is loyal, and will always give anyone dedicated to their program the benefit of the doubt. Their loyalty is so deeply rooted that they block everything out, including the cautionary stories that followed Butch Jones across the Mason-Dixon Line.

From the moment Butch Jones stepped up to the podium and said the words “spread offense” and “infallible offense”, fans of the color orange melted. They instantly believed everything Jones promised and more, even though there were legitimate questions about his resume from the beginning. I was one of those brainwashed by his empty promises and trite expressions. It all seemed too good to be true, and it was, but no one knew it yet.

Even before Jones ever walked on the hallowed ground that is Neyland Stadium, he gathered a decent recruiting class with little time to do so. In fact, Joshua Dobbs was an ASU commit who flipped last second in that first recruiting class.

In his first year, Jones beat a decent South Carolina team that Tennessee fans thought higher of than they should have. This started the hype train. The local media and beat writers force-fed fans the narrative that Jones could not only bring this program back to the big stage but launch it to national prominence again. This drove fans mad, with hope.

That same hope increased exponentially year by year as Jones continued to recruit well in the face of what national media deemed a ‘dumpster fire of a program’. Exceptional recruiting combined with a close loss every now and then led to most Volunteer fans being diagnosed with Butch fever. This fever would hold steady for most supporters of the Vols until the Oklahoma game in 2015. That was the game that led to the eventual firing of Jones this year.

Although Vol fans’ hopes were curbed constantly by Butch himself and the local media, they thought that when the Sooners came to town in September of 2015 the team would launch themselves onto the national stage for the first time in a long time. The fans didn’t have to have a win, but they did need proof that Tennessee was back.

In attendance at the game, I witnessed the most electric crowd I’ve ever experienced. From the moment Tennessee ran out of the T, a loud white noise buzzed around the stadium as 102,455 humans couldn’t hear. Even Oklahoma players were interviewed after the game and backed up this claim.

Tennessee came out strong and led the Sooners by 17 points as halftime hit. Everyone in the stadium that night was stunned. Then, the long 2 year downhill turn that would end in last week’s loss to Missouri would transpire. Baker Mayfield and the Sooners not only came back but embarrassed Tennessee and Jones on both sides of the ball and won in overtime.

It was a great comeback for the Sooners, but it only showed Tennessee fans what the writing on the wall now read. Butch Jones won’t win big here because he can’t make halftime adjustments or the right situational coaching decisions. Put in a simpler way, he didn’t know how to play big boy football, and it was clear soon after that he didn’t want to learn either.

Since that fateful day in September, Tennessee has mainly struggled, even when they should have taken care of business. Florida multiple times, Georgia, Missouri and Vandy all seemed further out of reach than ever before with Jones as head coach.

Tennessee football took a couple of steps forward in between the 2015 and 2016 season, but only through the sheer will and determination of the players. Jones and the Vols started the 2016 season 5-0 with all the hopes of making the playoffs still realistic. Fans started coming back around to Jones as the potential savior of this program because of the hot start, but quickly faded again as the season turned sour. The team lost to a 17-year-old South Carolina quarterback off of a bye and then proceeded to lose to Vanderbilt. Those two losses cost one of the best Tennessee teams in the last decade an SEC East title and a chance to play in the Sugar Bowl.

Fast forward to the 2017 season and the fans had lost much of all hope they once had in Jones. He no longer seemed the right guy for the job, and anything short of eight wins would hopefully end in his termination. Little did Volunteer fans know, however, that Jones would continue making terrible decisions when it mattered most. Losses to Florida and Georgia were the final straw for 99 percent of the Tennessee fan base, but not enough for John Currie to pull the trigger. It was only after more consecutive poor performances on the field did Currie fire, Jones.

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For Tennessee fans, the last few years with Jones has been full of ups and downs, but when it came to getting the job done, Jones couldn’t do it. I can’t blame the fans for wanting more than just a Music City Bowl win every year. The truth is, I don’t think Volunteer fans are demanding enough from the administration and boosters. If Tennessee asked fans to jump, they would respond with ‘how high?’. No matter who the coach is, Tennessee fans are willing to give them a chance, but once they see your weakness, it’s over.

Coaching the Tennessee Volunteers is one of the most stressful jobs in the nation, but if you trust the fans, they will shower you with gifts, support and make you a rock star. Jones never gained this status because he simply wouldn’t be honest with Tennessee fans. He decided to hide behind fancy sounding expressions that clashed with Southern culture, and never understood the one way to win over the fan base.

Let us in.

All Tennessee fans want is to have a legitimate shot at the SEC East every year and New Year’s Six Bowl once in a while. You don’t have to go undefeated every year in Knoxville, you just have to recognize our expectations and admit when you haven’t met them. Instead, Jones blamed the ‘outside clutter’, a comment directed towards fans last year and their lack of accepting mediocrity.

Now that Jones has left the building, Vol fans know they aren’t in a rebuild. With the right hire, the next coach can build on what is left standing on the sidelines next year. Regardless of who the next coach is, Volunteer fans want the administration and athletic department to prove to them, they are serious about football again. They aren’t going to be happy until Tennessee goes after a name they don’t have to google with coaching experience. We will not settle for anything less than what we deserve.

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How it all went wrong for Butch Jones at Tennessee after a promising start

By Hollis McLain | Nov 14, 2017

Here’s how it all went so wrong for Butch Jones at Tennessee after a promising start.