Tennessee football: Ranking everybody to coach a game for Vols in 2010s

Butch Jones does not deserve to be above Derek Dooley. He didn’t inherit nearly the mess that Dooley inherited, and he left Tennessee football in much worse shape than when he found it. In fact, when it comes to things done off the field, Jones was a complete and total disaster in too many ways to count.

He gets credit for one thing: APR improvement. Outside of that, though, he missed on too many recruits, grossly mismanaged talent, forced too many guys into systems they didn’t belong in, and saw numerous players transfer midseason, most notably Jalen Hurd in 2016. Meanwhile, he had multiple staff overhauls, and the Vols only got worse as he did them.

All of these things are bad enough. Jones’s on-field coaching antics were even worse. His panic to bench Justin Worley against the Florida Gators his first year cost the Vols a bowl bid. Then he coached away games to Florida three more of the next four years, the final one being what firmly put him on the hot seat.

Other games like the Texas A&M Aggies and South Carolina Gamecocks in 2016 were also mismanaged. Limiting the number of reps Alvin Kamara got, never letting receivers get into rhythm, and lashing out at the media after lying to them about players standing out were all big issues as well.

However, the fact of the matter is Jones still managed three straight winning seasons, the only three this decade before 2019, and three bowl berths for the Vols. He’s the only coach since Phillip Fulmer’s firing to lead UT to a top 25 season or a season with more than seven wins, and he did it twice. So there’s no way around his on-field performance, which is why he is No. 3 and not worse.