Is Vols Coach Butch Jones the Best Talent Evaluator in the Country?

As he continues to build the Tennessee football roster, Volunteers head coach Butch Jones may be the best evaluator of talent in the country.

When Butch Jones first took over in Knoxville in December of 2012, he initially had fans very nervous following what appeared to be a disastrous 2013 recruiting class.

But thanks to a thin roster, he was able to win fans back over by putting all of his effort into the 2014 recruiting class that summer, and his ability to over-sign allowed him to stock the roster. By the time the season came, fans went from skeptical to 100 percent behind him because of his recruiting haul.

The story of Butch Jones’s recruiting, however, has been more of talent evaluation than just out-recruiting coaches. In 2014, he was lucky with an elite crop of in-state talent and legacy players that he was able to secure.

That doesn’t explain the success of the 2015 recruiting class. And it certainly doesn’t explain how well the 2013 class panned out.

Despite the top three recruits of that class, Jason Carr, Austin Sanders, Paul Harris, and Marquez North not really panning out, it has been one of the most productive and over-achieving classes in school history. Let’s start with the fact that of those four, only North was recruited by Jones’s staff, and he would have panned out were it not for injuries.

Jalen Reeves-Maybin was the only other four-star. It’s safe to say he worked out, but again, he was recruited by Derek Dooley’s staff as well. Let’s take a look at the players Jones brought in.

Once taking over, he secured commitments from 12 players.

Most notable among the pack was three-star Joshua Dobbs. Dobbs then had a horrendous freshman season following his recruit. But Jones and his staff put all their eggs in his basket for the future of the program. Safe to say that worked out.

He also brought in three-stars Malik Foreman, Dylan Wiesman, and Kendal Vickers. All of those guys have become reliable contributors on the team.

Oh, and Jones famously spent more time making an effort to keep some of the recruits already on the roster, including three-stars Cam Sutton, Jalen Reeves-Maybin, Brett Kendrick, and Corey Vereen. All those guys have worked out pretty well also. 

Before he even arrived at Tennessee, Jones proved he had an eye for talent. Two players who went into the NFL Draft from Cincinnati this past year were three-star recruits brought in by Jones in 2011. By the time he left the Bearcats, despite bringing in only three four-stars in four recruiting classes, he left a roster that broke every offensive record this past year.

We can even go back to Central Michigan. Jones and Zach Azzanni convinced an unknown quarterback named Antonio Brown to walk onto Central Michigan their first year in 2007, and he converted to wide receiver. Brown is now a top receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Jones discovered Eric Fisher while there too, and he has now become a regular starter for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Getting back to Tennessee, let’s look at what he did with the class of 2014. Sure, it was an easy class, but Coleman Thomas, Ethan Wolfe, Aaron Medley, Emmanuel Moseley, and Jashon Robertson were all three-stars from that class who have become elite contributors as well, making it a better class than it even was on paper.

But for 2015, how was Jones, coming off a 5-7 season his first year, able to spend that summer securing recruits to put another Top 5 class together in 2015? The answer was not hauling in a ton of elite talent off the top like Nick Saban or Urban Meyer.

With the exception of Kahlil McKenzie, another legacy player, Jones, more than any other coach, managed to find unheralded players who would later be marked up.

Alvin Kamara committed in the summer the year before, and he had been a four-star while targeted by Saban before being marked up to a five-star after junior college.

The only other five-stars Jones focused on were in-state guys he could secure, Kyle Phillips and Drew Richmond. And even Phillips had to be marked up on other services outside of Rivals.

Many of the other elite players in the class were recruited by Jones before they could even be rated by Rivals, including Jack Jones, Preston Williams, Andrew Butcher, and Zach Stewart. All were marked up to four-stars, although extenuating family circumstances kept Stewart from being able to pan out, and Butcher is still battling injury issues. But from the talent perspective, Jones was clearly ahead of the curve.

Jones then made the decision to recruit Jauan Jennings as a quarterback and convert him to wide receiver. He then scouted Justin Martin early on.

Sure, Jones still nailed top guys like Shy Tuttle and Darrin Kirkland Jr. But this class also had other unheralded players who managed to pan out as freshmen, including Chance Hall.

Don’t forget even on special teams, Trevor Daniel was a walk-on and beat out a fifth-year senior and high school All-American to be the Vols punter last year, and he became one of the best punters in the nation. And John Kelly, another three-star, has emerged as the running back to carry the torch after Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara leave.

Simply put, Jones knows what he’s doing.

For this past recruiting class, Jones was limited on scholarships he could offer, so he had to be very careful in his talent evaluation. He went after Jonathan Kongbo early, who would later be upgraded to a five-star, and four-stars Ryan Johnson and Marquill Osbourne were brought in before they could be properly rated.

All of this is simply evidence that Jones and his staff get top-notch classes by evaluating talent far ahead of time and taking advantage of it. Imagine what this recruiting class will look like once many of his players are marked up.