Tennessee football: Former Vols slam Chris Weatherd over Butch Jones

Kahlil McKenzie and Kendal Vickers slammed their former Tennessee football Volunteers teammate.

An interview with former Tennessee football linebacker Chris Weatherd published on Fox Sports Knoxville Tuesday in which he exposed the program under Butch Jones. Weatherd, who spoke with Austin Sanders, was a four-star junior college transfer out of Texas who played in the program in 2014 and 2015.

One of the things Weatherd exposed was a blow-up between Jones and then-defensive coordinator John Jancek which followed with Jancek being replaced by Bob Shoop. Another was the fact that Jones would threaten to send him back to Texas at times when he was mad.

When it came to specific players, Weatherd said that Jones did give special treatment at times, such as allowing stars who weren’t hurt and didn’t play quarterback to still wear green jerseys. He singled out Jalen Hurd and Alvin Kamara as players who received such treatment at times.

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Weatherd noted things like Jones getting mad at everybody amidst the Drae Bowles and A.J. Johnson incident in 2014. He even told a personal story of Jones not believing him about a personal reason for him going home and as a result forcing him to sit out three games when he returned despite him getting the approval to go home through the proper channels.

Simply put, Weatherd signed off on the idea that the former Tennessee football coach was a con artist. However, while this attack on the culture of the program validated many Vol fans, it did not sit well with other former Vols. Many took it as him taking shots at other teammates.

Kahlil McKenzie, who played defensive tackle for the Vols under Jones from 2015 to 2017 and is now an offensive lineman in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks, went at Weatherd on Twitter,  using expletives at times. Here’s an example of some of the things he wrote.

Another person who chimed in was Kendal Vickers, who played for Tennessee football from 2013 to 2017. Vickers retweeted many of McKenzie’s tweets, but he also had his own things to say. Here are a few of his.

Beyond Vickers and McKenzie, Alexis Johnson Jr. also got in on it. Of these three defensive tackles, Johnson is the only one who actually played for Jeremy Pruitt after Jones. Thomas Edwards also got in on the issue. Here’s a look at some of their tweets.

It’s clear that Weatherd’s comments rubbed many teammates the wrong way. However, everybody saw the program coming undone under Jones, and the stories are relevant. As a result, nobody can really say he’s keeping things that much of a secret.

Coming out of Creekview High School in Carrollton Texas, Weatherd spent two years at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas before heding to Tennessee football. In his two years with the Vols, Weatherd appeared in every game and started once. He had four tackles for a loss, three and a half sacks and 21 total tackles, 17 of which were solo.