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Tennessee football: Butch Jones looks even worse after Vols pro day

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 14: Head coach Butch Jones of the Tennessee Volunteers reacts against the South Carolina Gamecocks during the second half at Neyland Stadium on October 14, 2017 in Knoxville, Tennessee. South Carolina defeated Tennessee 15-9. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 14: Head coach Butch Jones of the Tennessee Volunteers reacts against the South Carolina Gamecocks during the second half at Neyland Stadium on October 14, 2017 in Knoxville, Tennessee. South Carolina defeated Tennessee 15-9. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee football’s pro day on Monday was a success for many Volunteers. And it exposed some of the major shortcomings of Butch Jones’s career.

Related Story: 10 Vols bound for turnaround under Jeremy Pruitt

There was already enough evidence for Tennessee football fans to indict Butch Jones beyond his questionable in-game coaching. Starting Justin Worley and Nathan Peterman over Joshua Dobbs, not using Josh Malone a lot until his junior year, and limiting Alvin Kamara’s reps throughout his college career are just a few of bits of that.

However, on Monday, he looked worse than ever. The Vols’ pro day exposed his borderline criminal misuse of his personnel. It’s the biggest reason, beyond even his ridiculous in-game decisions, that he is not leading the team at the beginning of spring practice the next day.

Three players in different ways exposed how Jones misused them: Evan Berry, Kahlil McKenzie and John Kelly. And performances by all of them indicted Jones on Monday.

Berry is the primary person to make Jones look worse. The guy spent the day receiving numerous offensive reps.

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Throughout his college career, he demonstrated how elite he is with the ball in open space on kickoff returns. However, despite never proving much value at safety, Jones and his staff refused to convert him to an offensive player.

Well, NFL scouts and coaches disagreed, and that’s exactly where they gave him a look on Monday. Berry said himself he wants to play offense in the NFL. And given his unique skills, that’s the perfect fit for him. Everybody but Jones could see that in college.

But while that’s the most obvious failure, there were other ones too that players exposed Monday. Kahlil McKenzie, largely considered a bust on Monday, may have revealed why.

In workouts that included his father, Reggie McKenzie, in attendance, he tried reps at offensive and defensive line. Now, McKenzie may have always been a better defensive lineman. But with all the issues facing the team the past three years, wouldn’t it have made sense for Jones to at least give him a look at offensive line?

McKenzie clearly wasn’t the playmaker Tennessee football fans expected him to be upon arriving in Knoxville. But the fact that NFL Scouts could see a different potential fit for him in one day when Jones couldn’t see it in three years is another indictment.

Finally, the final indictment builds off of the Alvin Kamara scandal. When Jones made Kamara split reps with Jalen Hurd, a five-star power back who clearly wasn’t a fit for his system, John Kelly was forced to the bench.

Then, when Kelly finally got his chance in 2017, everybody could see that Tennessee football was misusing him. Poor play-calling forced him to average only four yards a carry.

Even when he was having an elite game, like against the Florida Gators, the coaches wouldn’t hand him the ball when it mattered. But don’t blame him for that stat line.

Kelly ran a 4.5 40 at his pro day, demonstrating how fast he truly was. Now, 40 times alone don’t tell any story. But it was always clear that Kelly was a strong back who also has a high football IQ.

Yet somehow, he had to ride the bench so Hurd could be the guy to split reps with Kamara. And in 2017, this exceptionally fast, strong and smart football player could only muster four yards a carry, highly mediocre for the college level.

Simply put, Butch Jones stopped his players better than anybody else did. That is the biggest reason he does not have a job right now.

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With spring practice under a new staff set to begin the day after pro day, all the personnel is clearly going to undergo a re-evaluation. And given Jones’s utter misuse of talent, it’s hard to know which guys will stand out in front of Jeremy Pruitt. But what’s clear is that it’s going to be hard for him to misuse his players worse than Jones did. That’s at least a small start.

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