Tennessee football: Ways Vols loss to Gamecocks shames Butch Jones

There are numerous reasons that Tennessee football’s loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks is embarrassing for Volunteers head coach Butch Jones.

Butch Jones was already on the hot seat. Tennessee football fans wanted him gone two weeks ago after a 41-0 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs. But with the Vols still 3-2 and the season still young, he still had a chance to turn things around.

After Saturday, though, he only made himself look worse. Jones and his staff coached away another loss, this time a 15-9 embarrassment to the South Carolina Gamecocks.

The loss itself is embarrassing in multiple ways.

First off, let’s remember that Jones and the Vols were coming off a bye week. A bye week! Yet until the final drive, they had negative yards on offense in the second half. How, with two weeks to prepare, can you not generate any offense?

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Even if it is against Will Muschamp‘s defense, they should not have looked that bad. And this comes after Jones talked about the bye being the best bye week ever.

Wow. Best bye week ever?

That reminds me of a Spongebob episode where Spongebob and Patrick tried to give Squidward his best day ever. Needless to say, it failed.

Remember, coming off that ‘best bye week,’ Jones and Larry Scott decided to make a switch at quarterback from Quinten Dormady to Jarrett Guarantano. And with Guarantano set up to fail Saturday, the offense went dead.

But it’s not just the horrific play there that makes this game embarrassing.

Let’s also note that Jones is now 0-4 against Will Muschamp, and Tennessee football is 0-6 overall against him. In what universe does it make sense for Muschamp to own anybody like that? He’s had far too many of his own failures as a head coach.

That’s another stain on Jones’s career. He can’t beat even the bad coaches. The guy is 0-4 against Muschamp and 1-2 against Jim McElwain.

Even beyond that embarrassment, the in-game play-calling was once again a failure. Jones refused to use a timeout in the first half with the Vols inside the five-yard line. That resulted in a delay of game penalty, forcing Tennessee to settle for another field goal.

Then, on the final drive, the Vols got inside the five again, but they ran 10 seconds off on the first down play. That left them with 12 seconds to do something. How could somebody be that ridiculous with their clock management? It brought back memories of Les Miles.

Also, once again, Tennessee decided not to give John Kelly the ball down there. With no timeouts, it made sense to do it the first two times.

But they then had one final play to run with a second left. At that point, why not be unpredictable and give it to Kelly when you’ve got a freshman quarterback in there, you’re at the one-yard line, and South Carolina is spreading out expecting a pass?

Well, asking for unpredictability from this offense is just too much. That’s why they were so awful in the second half.

Bob Shoop did his job until the defense got tired. Larry Scott once again failed miserably. And altogether, it’s simply embarrassing for Butch Jones.

When you make questionable decisions on the sideline again, when your offense looks terrible coming off a bye week, and when you are 0-4 against Will Muschamp, you’ve really damaged your reputation. That’s where Jones stands right now. As a result, there’s no way he should continue coaching the Tennessee football program.

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Tennessee football: Vols loss to Gamecocks shames Butch Jones in many ways

By Caleb Calhoun | Oct 15, 2017

There are numerous reasons that Tennessee football’s loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks is embarrassing for Volunteers head coach Butch Jones.