How Tennessee Vols Head Coach Butch Jones Could Get Fired After 2016 Season
Tennessee football coach Butch Jones enters his fourth season with the Volunteers under high expectations. Here is how he could get fired after this year.
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Up until this point, Butch Jones has done everything right by the Tennessee Vols as head coach. Since he took over the program at the end of 2012, he made sure to use his limited 2013 recruiting resources to recruit specific players that he evaluated better than anybody else.
He also recruited to fill specific needs.
Then Jones made sure to stack the roster in 2014 and 2015, and he went back to his meticulous recruiting process for 2016. All of this was to set up the Vols for a great run in the 2016 season and beyond.
Heck, Jones even made the right staff hires to make sure the Vols were ready for a national title run in 2016.
But while he has done everything right off the field for Tennessee to this point, he could still lose his job if he doesn’t perform on the field.
In each of the past three years, Jones’s Vols have directly met expectations on the dot. This year, however, the expectations are higher.
And the Vols have the talent and personnel to exceed their expectations.
Despite the fall from grace over the past decade, the standard for the Tennessee football program hasn’t changed.
Championships are part of the tradition.
If a coach puts the program back in position to compete for championships, which is what Jones has done, the next step actually has to be winning championships.
Despite all of the hype, Tennessee could fire Jones after this year if he doesn’t show the program is on track to do that.
To stay on track, he needs at least a Top 15 finish and an SEC East title, or a Top 10 finish. An SEC Championship needs to be the ultimate goal, though.
But things could also go the other way.
Imagine, for a second, if the Vols go 9-4 again. What if they lose to Florida, Georgia, and Alabama? Those things alone will put Jones on the hot seat after this year.
Now think about the worst-case scenario for the program.
They lose all four of their big games in the SEC. Then they choke away a couple of other moderately tough games. Maybe they lose to South Carolina and Vanderbilt on the road.
Maybe Missouri shocks them in Knoxville.
Or maybe they lose to Virginia Tech at the Battle at Bristol.
Any of these losses would be unacceptable. Still, there’s no reason to believe they can’t happen.
These teams are deceivingly tough. If Jones falls to 7-5 or 6-6 on the regular season, Dave Hart will have to think long and hard about whether or not to fire him.
Jones’s selling point is that he has the program in great shape for the future. However, what good does that do if he’s not winning the big games on the field?
If the Vols have a losing record, Jones should be fired regardless of any bad luck they get.
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So while the expectations have returned and Jones has built the Vols back up, it’s time for his program to take the next step. Otherwise, the praise he’s receiving now could turn into scorn very quickly.