Tennessee football: Where did it all go wrong for Butch Jones?
By Colby Howell
Tennessee football has fired head coach, Butch Jones. As we reflect on his tenure with the Volunteers, what was the point the started the downward spiral?
The news is nonstop out of Knoxville. John Currie has decided to pull the plug on head coach Butch Jones and name Brady Hoke Tennessee football’s interim head coach. If we reflect, where did it go wrong for CBJ?
The support for him slowly began weening away at the conclusion of the 2016 season. If you look at the depth chart, it was absolutely inexcusable for Jones to have not made it to Atlanta. He was loaded with national championship talent. So, what happened?
Midway through last year, Tennessee football was soaring. Fans had so much to believe in. The Vols soundly defeated Florida at home and miraculously beat Georgia on the road. Then what? They faltered. They lost to South Carolina and Vanderbilt on the road. Their only road victory in 2016 was on that miraculous Hail Mary at Georgia.
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At that point, the support was kind of split. A lot of people were trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. We can’t forget the Jalen Hurd drama and the injuries. Jones was showing tremendous upside, having not lost more games than his previous seasons any time in Knoxville. His winning record was on the way up.
Then something interesting happened: the 2017 NFL draft. I don’t think Jones or fans realized exactly what Tennessee was losing. He lost Joshua Dobbs, Alvin Kamara, Cameron Sutton, Jaylen Reeves-Maybin, Derek Barnett, Josh Malone, Corey Vereen, and LaTroy Lewis.
BUTCH JONES WAS EXPOSED WITHOUT HIS PLAYERS
I can’t sit here and tell you that Jones will be terrible anywhere he goes. It’s untrue. He has the chops to be an excellent head coach in the Pac 12. SEC is a totally different conference.
In the SEC, you have to develop your players. I don’t doubt for a second that Damien Harris at Bama or Sony Michel at Georgia are better running backs than Saquon Barkley. Different conferences, higher level of competition. If you throw John Kelly in at Penn State, he’d be looking pretty Heisman worthy too.
Butch Jones developed his beginning stock of recruits pretty well (Dobbs, Barnett, Sutton, Maybin, Kamara, Hurd- until he left). Mind you this was development under a different Tennessee football staff. However, Jones has always produced great running backs.
Alongside Robert Gillespie, you’ve got Alvin Kamara, Jalen Hurd, now Ty Chandler, John Kelly, Carlin Fils-Aime all coming out of Knoxville. Since taking over for Tennessee football, Jones has recruited over 40 four-star players and a few five-star players. On paper, this is a dream team. Despite it all, he never made it to Atlanta.
That is where it all spiraled.
Joshua Dobbs turned so many botched offensive plays into gold. Kamara’s running ability kept drives alive with 1st downs. Barnett’s rushing ability put quarterbacks in the ground. He broke Reggie White‘s sack record, for goodness sake!
The 2016 players did everything they could. Now, without them in 2017, Tennessee football is 0-6 in SEC play and 4-6 on the season. Not only are they 0-6, but they’ve had three blowout losses this year. One of those blowouts was the worst shutout loss at home since 1905. The other one, the night before his firing, is the worst blowout loss in history against an unranked team in the AP Poll.
It happened much later than fans anticipated but the Butch Jones era has ended. Rocky Top is crying out for Jon Gruden. Who knows if that will actually happen, but with Tennessee football at rock bottom once more, the program has no where to go but up.