Tennessee football athletic director John Currie is ruining any chance to salvage what’s left of the 2017 Volunteers’ season by not firing Butch Jones.
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If John Currie is just waiting until the end of the season to fire Tennessee football head coach Butch Jones but still plans to do it, he’s making a huge mistake. That will only make things worse for the 2017 Vols.
It may seem crazy, but Tennessee is only 3-5. They may not have any shot at a division title, a national ranking, or anything special. But they still have some things to play for.
The Vols still have a chance to play for a bowl game. They could still fight for seven or eight wins. And in a lost year, those are points of pride that fans should not forget about.
However, they can’t do that unless Currie fires Jones. Right now, fans are leading an #EmptyNeyland movement to not show up for the games until Jones is fired. It’s pretty clear everybody has quit on the team.
On top of that, we now have the new allegations against Jones and his staff that they knowingly played Brett Kendrick with a concussion against the Kentucky Wildcats. To be clear, Jones has denied it.
However, it’s still out there. And can anybody honestly expect the players to be united behind their coach with such a story?
With those distractions, there’s no way the players could get to a bowl game down the stretch of the year. Heck, they might have a hard time winning even one game the rest of the way.
And to take away that opportunity does a huge disservice to everybody.
How are the players supposed to focus on any game the rest of the way when they keep wondering if their coach is a dead man walking or if he even has their best interest at heart? At the very least, announce his firing and then let him finish out the season.
But the best move would be to fire him and name an interim coach to rejuvenate the program and eliminate the distraction. Either way, though, this Tennessee football team is making a huge mistake.
Yes, the season is a loss overall. But even if you’re looking towards the future, the Vols can still play for a bowl game and an eight-win season.
If Currie doesn’t think that is a valuable thing to worry about, he has no pride in the program. There is no way Tennessee football can win out or play for anything without firing Jones. As a result, fans have every right to not show up on Saturday.
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No, that’s not a disservice to the players, especially the seniors. The disservice is not announcing a firing that everybody knows is coming. By doing that, Currie is just keeping the Vols in a lame duck state. And there’s no way they can win anything in that situation.