Butch Jones throws his hat in the ring for Maryland job

Maryland will be looking for a new football coach, and Butch Jones has reportedly already expressed interest.

Initially, and inexplicably in the wake of the investigation into Jordan McNair’s death, D.J. Durkin was retained as football coach at Maryland. On Wednesday night, the course was rightly reversed and Durkin was let go.

Now, according to Rivals, former Tennessee coach Butch Jones has expressed interest in the job.

Jones is in the middle of his first season as an offensive analyst under Nick Saban at Alabama. Prior to that, he had a 34-27 record over nearly five seasons as head coach at Tennessee before being fired with a 4-6 mark last year.

Over 11 total seasons as a head coach, at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Tennessee, Jones has a 84-54 record (.609 winning percentage) with a 4-2 record in bowl games. So even with the bad end in Knoxville, Jones should be in the mix for a job in this year’s coaching carousel.

Jones, a Michigan native, has no ties to the University of Maryland … other than the school needing a head coach and him wanting to be one again.

Jones got an $8.26 million buyout from Tennessee when he was fired, scheduled to be paid in monthly installments through when his contract was set to expire on Feb. 28, 2021.

Anything he earns at another job in the meantime would offset that buyout money, so it’s clearly no accident he’s being paid just $35,000 by Alabama this year.

Of course a head coaching job would pay Jones a lot more than $35,000 per year, likely between five and 10 times that at Maryland or somewhere else. It also goes without saying Tennessee would be thrilled to avoid a nice piece of that $8 million-plus payout.

Maryland’s brass should have a fairly long list of candidates to replace Durkin, and no one that could be considered realistic should be out of bounds to pursue. On that scale, Jones fits the mold of someone a school would settle for after their top choices were gone.

But credit to him for making sure Maryland, and any other school who might consider hiring him, knows he’s still around.