Today On Rocky Top: Dave Hart Confident In Butch Jones

Nov 18, 2012; Knoxville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers athletic director Dave Hart announces the firing of football head coach Derek Dooley at Stokely Family Media Center. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

From The Tennessean

"Tennessee athletics director Dave Hart has even more confidence in Butch Jones now than when he hired the Vols’ football coach a year ago.Not even a losing record in Jones’ debut season has changed that.Hart said Jones has changed the culture surrounding Tennessee’s program, even though the coaching move hasn’t altered the Volunteers’ record yet. Tennessee had the same 5-7 record this fall as it posted last year in the final season of fired coach Derek Dooley’s tenure."

From Bleacher Report

"In today’s age of coaches using helicopters and “hot sauce” pitches that tell recruits anything they want to hear just to get a signed letter of intent, Tennessee coach Butch Jones is winning over prospects with good, old-fashioned honesty.Perhaps that’s the chief reason why, even in the wake of the Vols’ third consecutive bowl-less season, Jones has kept a potential program-changing recruiting class ranked second by 247Sports largely intact.Nothing that happened this season to UT was a surprise to any of the Vols’ verbal pledges; Jones told them it was coming."

From The Leaf Chronicle

"No. 3 Tennessee (9-0) needs a few more passes to get there when it plays Tennessee State (3-7) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Thompson-Boling Arena. The game will not be televised but is available via live streaming at UTSports.com.A major clean-up is advisable before playing at No. 6 Stanford on Saturday. The Lady Vols scattered 28 turnovers throughout last Saturday’s 103-64 rout of Troy. Afterward, forward Cierra Burdick said the single-game season high was “unacceptable.” Lockwood took his criticism a step further on Monday, calling the largesse “atrocious.”"

From WBIR

"According to his college teammate Tony White, former Tennessee hoops star Dyron Nix passed away over the weekend.“I’m still trying to soak it in,” White told WBIR over the phone on Sunday night.White says he spoke with a member close to Nix’s family, who told White Nix was having trouble with pneumonia. Nix was 46 years old.Nix played with the Vols from 1985-89, where he averaged 22.2 points per game his junior year, and 21.6 points per game his senior year.“He improved over the years into a great player,” White remembered.Nix finished his collegiate career with 1,877 career points, good for 8th on Tennessee’s career scoring list."