Tennessee football: Coordinator hire hurt Butch Jones, past Vols coaches

Tennessee football head coach Butch Jones is about to join a list of other recent Volunteers coaches who were done in by a bad coordinator hire.

When Butch Jones let go of John Jancek to bring in Bob Shoop as Tennessee football’s defensive coordinator, it was hailed as a bold move. Replacing Mike Bajakian with Mike DeBord also worked out for a while.

But this year, another coordinator move may finally be the one that does him in. Jones hired Larry Scott to replace DeBord, and its inability to work out has been a huge issue.

Let’s not forget why Jones hired Scott over amazingly better candidates like Mark Helfrich. It was because he wanted to keep his system in place.

Well, seven games in, the Vols are 3-4, 0-4 in the SEC and have no offensive touchdowns in the past three and a half games. Scott’s offensive play-calling single-handedly cost them agains the Florida Gators and South Carolina Gamecocks.

To be fair, this is not Scott’s fault. He spent all of one year coaching in Jones’s system. And Jones hired him with that little experience in the offense over Zach Azzanni, his receivers coach who had been with him since Central Michigan.

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If Jones so badly wanted to keep his system in place, Azzanni was clearly the right move. Scott has made numerous mistakes calling plays, and he’s mismanaged the quarterback situation.

But the main issue is that he’s offensive system after one year of experience working in it. So we don’t want to put this on him. He probably is a good coordinator. Azzanni, however, was more ready to run this specific system.

The quarterback situation between Quinten Dormady and Jarrett Guarantano likely falls more on Jones anyway. Don’t get me wrong. This is all Jones’s fault.

It’s not the first time a bad coordinator hire did in a Tennessee football coach. In fact, it’s not even the first time in recent history.

In 2012, Derek Dooley‘s decision to hire Sal Sunseri got him fired. Remember, the Vols had record-setting offensive numbers that year. But in an inexplicably stupid move, Dooley brought in Sunseri to replace Justin Wilcox, who bolted for the Washington Huskies.

That move was not stupid because Sunseri was a bad hire on paper. It was stupid because Dooley was going into 2012 coaching for his football career, and he hired a defensive coordinator who would make a switch from a 4-3 to a 3-4. The confusion screwed the Vols, and that’s why Dooley went 4-7 in 2012 before his firing.

If he had made the right hire that year and stuck with the 4-3, Tennessee likely would have gone 9-3 or maybe even 10-2. And there’s a chance he’d still be head coach now.

Before Dooley, though, a Hall of Fame coach had his career done in by a bad coordinator hire. Phillip Fulmer hired Dave Clawson to replace David Cutcliffe. And that clearly did not work out.

As we’re seeing with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, Clawson was not a bad hire long-term. But with the personnel and the system Tennessee football had been running, it didn’t mesh well.

The offense revolved around accuracy and getting playmakers the ball in open space. Jonathan Crompton as quarterback, though, needed to be in a vertical deep passing system.

At the time, Fulmer had a viable candidate to replace David Cutcliffe in Cutcliffe’s understudy, Trooper Taylor. But he drug his feet, and Taylor left for Oklahoma State.

Had Fulmer hired Taylor, who had four years to study the system and two working directly under Cutcliffe, there’s a chance he would have coached a few more years.

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Simply put, a bad coordinator hire can seriously ruin you. It can also make you as well.

Fulmer’s decision to promote David Cutcliffe in the 1990s turned Tennessee football into a national power. His decision to replace Cutcliffe with Randy Sanders nearly ruined him.

And Jones’s decision to promote Larry Scott likely ruined him. What happened hurt both coaches. This was not a good hire from the start, and it’s time to tell it like it is.

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Tennessee football: Butch Jones, like past Vols coaches, ruined by coordinator hire

By Caleb Calhoun | Oct 26, 2017

Tennessee football head coach Butch Jones is about to join a list of other recent Volunteers coaches who were done in by a bad coordinator hire.