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what are your thoughts on butch jones? is he a good hire or bad hire?


Governm
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Butch Jones is a good coach. The problem is that UT is looking for a Elite Coach! In a very good season he'll win 10 games, but most of the time it'll be 8 or 9 victories. Enough to buy him 1 more season. Here's what i don't understand, other than their lone title season the Vols have NEVER BEEN ELITE! Sure, Peyton gave big orange fans lots to cheer about for some years, but before / after him the teams have been good to slightly above average. Tennessee is a first-class institution with a great, crazed & rabid fan base ( one of the best out there ), but the fan's passion has been better than the teams! It's time for UT to spend on a big-time coach. Heck, even Mike Leech has Washington St. relevant again while UT struggles. Come on UT, gotta do better than this. GO VOLS  !!!!

P.S. - I'm NOT a Vols fan, but I'd still like to see them competitive. I like their fans craziness / loyalty ! 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On ‎10‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 10:25 AM, cradle2thegravelakersfan said:

Butch Jones is a good coach. The problem is that UT is looking for a Elite Coach! In a very good season he'll win 10 games, but most of the time it'll be 8 or 9 victories. Enough to buy him 1 more season. Here's what i don't understand, other than their lone title season the Vols have NEVER BEEN ELITE! Sure, Peyton gave big orange fans lots to cheer about for some years, but before / after him the teams have been good to slightly above average. Tennessee is a first-class institution with a great, crazed & rabid fan base ( one of the best out there ), but the fan's passion has been better than the teams! It's time for UT to spend on a big-time coach. Heck, even Mike Leech has Washington St. relevant again while UT struggles. Come on UT, gotta do better than this. GO VOLS  !!!!

P.S. - I'm NOT a Vols fan, but I'd still like to see them competitive. I like their fans craziness / loyalty ! 

Well said. Before I add my 2 cents, I'll mention that I'm an Ohio State ('05) and Tennessee ('07) alum, and I openly root for both teams. The problem with such a crazed fanbase (I think both OSU and UT qualify) is that when you aren't winning at a certain clip, fans get unruly, largely because their expectations are out of whack.

Ohio State dealt with that first hand prior to Jim Tressel; John Cooper had a ton of 10+ win seasons in the 90s, but the man just couldn't beat Michigan, and the fans couldn't accept that. In Tennessee's case, I think fans need to adjust their glasses a bit more. At the end of Johnny Majors' tenure and throughout the majority of the Fulmer years, the SEC was a 2-team league (Bama/UF and UT), which made Fulmer's job infinitely easier. But by the time the mid-2000s rolled around, the SEC was MUCH deeper. Suddenly you had LSU, Auburn, Georgia, and even South Carolina/Arkansas competing at a higher rate, in addition to Florida and Tennessee (Alabama wasn't even in the conversation, at the time). On top of that, traditional doormats weren't doormats anymore; Kentucky, Vandy, Ole Miss, and MSU were much more competitive. IMO, by the end of the Fulmer era, it wasn't enough to simply out-talent your opponent, and that sunk Fulmer. You had to develop your talent and outcoach your opponents, which will ultimately sink Butch Jones.

The evolution of the SEC in the 2000s would make a fantastic 30 for 30. Think about it - How and why did the SEC become a juggernaut? IMO, three factors played a role, and they are all related to recruiting:

1) The population increases throughout the southeastern US (compared to other regions) increased the overall prep talent pool, which led to more homegrown talent. Pretty simple - More local talent leads to better recruiting and better rosters.

2) By the 2000s, the SEC was a full generation plus removed from league-wide integration. This is a touchy subject, but the SEC didn't integrate until 1967, and many of the individual programs didn't until the 1970s. For years, a LOT of homegrown talent flocked to programs outside of the south (Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, USC, etc). I have to believe that during the 1970s, the majority of African-American players were still skeptical about playing in the SEC. But given enough time, those wounds would heal, and more athletes would choose to play in the SEC. The floodgates eventually opened, and I think that came to a head in the 2000s.

3) The SEC's academic reputation is less than stellar. This is another touchy subject, but outside of Vanderbilt, the SEC isn't exactly known for its academic rigor (especially compared to the Big 10 or Pac 12); even the Commodores routinely utilize a loophole in their admittance criteria (via Peabody) to bolster their recruiting. This gives the SEC an advantage in that their football players aren't perceived as "student-athletes " (aka NFL farm league).

I'll also add that to combat #3, the NCAA eligibility requirements were changed again in 2016, which now requires incoming freshmen athletes to have even more core credits (increased to 16), and they must pass those classes with a minimum 2.3 GPA. At the time that the rule change was proposed, it was believed that >40% of incoming SEC freshmen athletes would be deemed ineligible. The NCAA received a lot of flak over this proposal, so the NCAA tweaked the requirements to allow schools to redshirt an incoming freshmen who doesn't meet the GPA requirement (core GPA must be between 2.0 and 2.3). It isn't the only explanation, but this certainly could help explain why the SEC East division is as weak as it has been since the start of divisional play.

Personally, I think Tennessee can compete at the top of the SEC again, but fans need to adjust their expectations. While Tennessee has a strong history, a great fanbase, and fantastic facilities, it can be a tough place to recruit (very little homegrown talent), the fans are overly critical of everything (never seen a fanbase so nasty), and the power brokers who essentially control the program are a bad look (maybe not "Al Davis" bad, but still).

If you can't tell, I could write a book on this.

Edited by osunut2
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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not one of the "Fire Butch" crowd because I simply don't want to change coaches in the middle of the season. I just don't understand how he can have the veteran staff he has, and you never hear anything about the Assistant Head Coach or the Defensive Coach. They hardly ever give an interview; they don't say much at all. I am perplexed by what is going on at Knoxville. All signs point to the fact the admin already has someone in place and everything else is on hold. But is looks like that would have been leaked by now. I've been a TN fan since 1973 and this is the worst team we have ever had, and Jones is the worst coach - even worse than Dooley. I am very disappointed in what he has done (or not done) since he came from Cincinnati. I thought he was a good hire and I thought TN would be 7-5 in a bad year and 10-2 or 11-1 in a good year. This obviously did not happen and it is only up from here - I hope. 

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The next few weeks will be interesting. The men's basketball team looks decent this year. As for Football, the AD told recruits if there wasn't a new coach in by Dec 20 there would be a new AD. So they have a solid plan in place and the list of possible coaches looks decent. From what the AD says, it seems as if they are going to be targeting a coach from a big program as in Power 5 Conference. We are in a situation like Bama was before Sabin. Bama opened up the check book to get him and I feel UT needs to open up theirs to hire a good coach this time.

Edited by EHSTrack06
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On ‎11‎/‎15‎/‎2017 at 3:37 PM, EHSTrack06 said:

The next few weeks will be interesting. The men's basketball team looks decent this year. As for Football, the AD told recruits if there wasn't a new coach in by Dec 20 there would be a new AD. So they have a solid plan in place and the list of possible coaches looks decent. From what the AD says, it seems as if they are going to be targeting a coach from a big program as in Power 5 Conference. We are in a situation like Bama was before Sabin. Bama opened up the check book to get him and I feel UT needs to open up theirs to hire a good coach this time.

While this situation does feel like Alabama pre-Saban, I think there is one major difference - boosters. Certain key power players (the Haslems) have way too much say in the decisions that are being made in this athletic department. The problem isn't necessarily writing the check (while they may be reluctant, folks like the Haslems can afford to open up their wallet); it comes down to giving up power/control, and folks like the Haslems aren't willing to do that. They've had pseudo-control of this entire athletic department for years, and I think they'd like to keep it that way.

Nick Saban was essentially given the keys to the kingdom when he was hired at Alabama, and look how that panned out. Right now, I'm not convinced that Tennessee is willing to do that, which makes it difficult to attract a number of big name candidates. Let's be real - coaches like Saban, Jim Harbaugh, Urban Meyer, Chip Kelly, and even Jon Gruden want to essentially be GMs. I just don't believe that Tennessee is willing to give their head football coach that kind of power/control.

Things are going to get really interesting, especially now that the UCLA job is open. I expect Chip Kelly to end up in LA, while Scott Frost is a toss-up between Nebraska and Florida (I'm leaning toward the Huskers). So where do Tennessee and Florida go from there? First of all, you don't call the retirees (Stoops, Miles). Guys like Matt Campbell and Jeff Brohm have INSANE buyouts, so I doubt either of them are in play. Mike Norvell is just another version of Butch Jones, so I don't think you even consider him (same goes for PJ Fleck ). Chris Peterson is staying on the west coast. Gary Patterson is VERY comfortable at TCU, as is Mike Gundy at OK State. Bobby Petrino and Lane Kiffin carry way too much baggage, so I don't think they are in play either.

So who does that realistically leave? Dan Mullen, Justin Fuente (if you can pull him from VT, which is doubtful), Chad Morris, Jimbo Fisher (if he's unhappy at FSU), David Cutcliffe (if his heart can handle it), and Greg Schiano? It just feels like all signs point to Mullen or Schiano at this point for Tennessee, and if they can't get him, we all better hang on for dear life.

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Chris Low was talking to Tony Basilio about the coaching search at UT, and offered up some very interesting thoughts. Chris Low is a UT guy, but he was able to remove his orange colored glasses to offer up some interesting nuggets which are hard to argue with:

"A lot of [coaches] don't want to be in [the SEC]. Not just Tennessee but all these SEC schools... Great example is Jim McElwain, really grounded guy but it just didn't work out for him here. McElwain was miserable at the end. His players were getting miserable stuff said to them. His family was. He was. He was not a happy camper."

"Tennessee is probably the 5th best job in the SEC. It's got passion and money and facilities and history. But it's a hard job. There's also a little bit of an unrealistic expectation here among everybody. The last 40 years, it's been an 8 or 9 win program except for part of Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer era."

He went on to say that Dan Mullen is the best, most realistic coach that UT could bring in to replace Jones. And if they don't get Mullen, UT should target Matt Campbell at Iowa State. He also put the chances of hiring Gruden at 2.5-5% (not good), with Lane Kiffin's chances further below that.

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Hopefully we will see what happens today after the Egg Bowl. I think Mullen is a good coach and a better person. He would bring some stability and fire power to the program. Tennessee has to have some resolution. This situation with Jones has been like a bad divorce that just keeps going and going. Go Vols. We're all still here. 

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