Butch 4th ranked overpaid coach in NCAA?

#177
#177
No, LA, you did. When you reached into the future, declared an outcome, and then talked about how that outcome is unacceptable to some, acceptable to others.

If you'd stuck with the past two seasons, and whether folks found them acceptable or not, you'd have been on solid ground. But for some reason, you had to extend it into a future that hasn't played out yet.
 
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#178
#178
VFL-82-JP said:
That's who. In the bolded statement. Premature conclusion about a season not yet played.
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well it hasn't happened yet, so i know i didn't take it as a premature conclusion. that it hasn't happened, it's at least inferred as a projection, not fact.

could he have used a different word choice? ok, yeah.
 
#179
#179
We keep bumping up against this same disagreement in thread after thread, Jake. You're good with assuming what you think people probably meant, while I take them at their word and go with what they actually said.

Are you right in guessing their meaning and intent? Sometimes, sure. Sometimes not. So I'll keep believing that people mean what they say, and responding to that.
 
#180
#180
VFL-82-JP said:
We keep bumping up against this same disagreement in thread after thread, Jake. You're good with assuming what you think people probably meant, while I take them at their word and go with what they actually said.

Are you right in guessing their meaning and intent? Sometimes, sure. Sometimes not. So I'll keep believing that people mean what they say, and responding to that.
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i'm not assuming the 2017 season hasn't been played.
 
#182
#182
VFL-82-JP said:
I'm not assuming it hasn't been played, either. I'm positive that it has not. :)
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so any discussion relative to the 2017 is all conjecture and projection.

i just don't think, then, it's as a great a leap to connect those dots as you do.

fair?
 
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#183
#183
LA Vol said:
Take historical revisionism out of it and make it simple: The Vols have been at 8-4 the past two years and the majority seem to think that's where the team will end up this year. So three different UT teams with different players, different position coaches and varying levels of talent, depth and experience will have the same outcome-- an 8-4 record. Some fans find that acceptable; others do not. And therein lies the controversy.
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This is a great take and one that makes you think.

2015 was an 8-4 team talent/schedule-wise that actually finished 8-4. 2016 was a 10-2 team talent/schedule-wise that actually finished 8-4. 2017 is unwritten obviously, but it appears to be a 7-5 or 8-4 team talent/schedule-wise.

Butch hasn't had an overachieving team during his time here and one underachieving team. Does he need an overachieving team this year to keep his job? Maybe.
 
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#184
#184
It would be fair if you could peer inside the minds of the people you're discussing football with, Jake, to see if they really meant what you'd like them to mean. Of course, you can't.

There are plenty of folks on these very boards who have already passed judgment on all Butch's future work. He will never succeed at Tennessee. And so they're ready to fire him today. These folks, they know in their bones that 2017 won't be better than 8-4. Heck, some of them think we'll be very lucky to get past 6-6. They've said so.

So to conclude that "since it's the future, it's just conjecture and projection" is to put YOUR frame of mind on them. They have no qualms declaring it done in advance, and reaching conclusions based upon it. Go back, read those threads where they say those very words, there are plenty of them.

Now, do I think LA is one of them? I don't know, he's generally a pretty insightful guy, so probably not. But I'm not gonna put words in his mouth...gonna take him at his word that he means what he says.

That's what's fair, in my book.
 
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#185
#185
VFL-82-JP said:
It would be fair if you could peer inside the minds of the people you're discussing football with, Jake, to see if they really meant what you'd like them to mean. Of course, you can't.

There are plenty of folks on these very boards who have already passed judgment on all Butch's future work. He will never succeed at Tennessee. And so they're ready to fire him today. These folks, they know in their bones that 2017 won't be better than 8-4. Heck, some of them think we'll be very lucky to get past 6-6. They've said so.

So to conclude that "since it's the future, it's just conjecture and projection" is to put YOUR frame of mind on them. They have no qualms declaring it done in advance, and reaching conclusions based upon it. Go back, read those threads where they say those very words, there are plenty of them.

Now, do I think LA is one of them? I don't know, he's generally a pretty insightful guy, so probably not. But I'm not gonna put words in his mouth...gonna take him at his word that he means what he says.

That's what's fair, in my book.
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2017 hasn't been played yet. you don't have to be a psychic to figure it out. this is just semantics on two different points of view, that don't have anything to do with the actual topic.....it's a tangent that's fairly easily explained, and put to bed.

in this you've drawn some conclusions of your own about what people think and what motivates them.

heck in this thread alone i've gone from being negavol to sunshine pumper back to negavol.

all because people just focus on the semantics, and not the context, or just choose to pick apart a segment of something's that said.
 
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#186
#186
VFL-82-JP said:
No, LA, you did. When you reached into the future, declared an outcome, and then talked about how that outcome is unacceptable to some, acceptable to others.

If you'd stuck with the past two seasons, and whether folks found them acceptable or not, you'd have been on solid ground. You're the one who pre-set the 2017 outcome at 8-4 again, then talked about how folks would feel about it.
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I'm not sure what has you so riled, JP. I didn't say what I find acceptable or not, nor what you or anyone else should find acceptable. I simply inserted a prevailing popular opinion into a paradigm. I qualified the parameters from the outset. The majority of posters seem to draw some sort of line at 8-4, so that's what I used. It represents popular opinion, not my own.

Nobody knows what's going to happen until it does, which is why variables are used to predict outcomes. Every day, on every sports show, someone is predicting outcomes based on variables.
 
#187
#187
Here's what we know, LA:

5-7
7-6
9-4
9-4

Acknowledging that 2016's 9-4 truly should have been 11-2 (or at least 10-2 regular season, with an unknown bowl game and possible SEC CG beyond it), that still plots out in linear regression as a strongly positive slope. Things have gotten better for Tennessee since Butch took over.

But where this board has a HUGE disagreement is whether that curve has peaked. Some say USCe and Vandy were indicators, that it's going back down. Some say USCe and Vandy might've been hiccups, or growing pains, or whatever, and we can still improve toward championships with Butch.

Fact is, no one knows.

By reaching into the 2017 season, declaring that "8-4 is the common answer and that's unacceptable to some of us," you (perhaps unintentionally) passed judgment on something Butch hasn't even done yet. You didn't have to do that. You could've made your point just using what's already happened.

Yes, there is a divide among VolNation. Yes, it revolves around whether or not Butch has peaked and should be tossed to the curb. You could've certainly said that, and had a "pretty good take" without including an 8-4 2017.

As for why I'm riled up, it probably has a lot to do with the NegaVols running rampant since the USCe and Vandy debacles last fall. The team (coaches and players) pissed me off for not going into those games prepared, and the NegaVols have been pissing me off ever since for taking advantage of it. But that's not on you, so my apologies that my angst is filtering into other conversations, like this one.
 
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#189
#189
VFL-82-JP said:
Here's what we know, LA:

5-7
7-6
9-4
9-4

Acknowledging that 2016's 9-4 truly should have been 11-2 (or at least 10-2 regular season, with an unknown bowl game and possible SEC CG beyond it), that still plots out in linear regression as a strongly positive slope. Things have gotten better for Tennessee since Butch took over.

But where this board has a HUGE disagreement is whether that curve has peaked. Some say USCe and Vandy were indicators, that it's going back down. Some say USCe and Vandy might've been hiccups, or growing pains, or whatever, and we can still improve toward championships with Butch.

Fact is, no one knows.

By reaching into the 2017 season, declaring that "8-4 is the common answer and that's unacceptable to some of us," you (perhaps unintentionally) passed judgment on something Butch hasn't even done yet. You didn't have to do that. You could've made your point just using what's already happened.

Yes, there is a divide among VolNation. Yes, it revolves around whether or not Butch has peaked and should be tossed to the curb. You could've certainly said that, and had a "pretty good take" without including an 8-4 2017.

As for why I'm riled up, it probably has a lot to do with the NegaVols running rampant since the USCe and Vandy debacles last fall. The team (coaches and players) pissed me off for not going into those games prepared, and the NegaVols have been pissing me off ever since for taking advantage of it. But that's not on you, so my apologies that my angst is filtering into other conversations, like this one.
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Maybe some fans don't put as much stock in bowl game appearances/wins, or OOC wins as much as you?

Until we are winning the conference, those wins are nice, but ultimately meaningless except for chest-thumping, and CBJ's current conference record stands as:

2-6
3-5
5-3
4-4

You can shout "9-4" all day long, but 4 years under Butch when UT still isn't competitive in the division, much less the conference, what does it matter that we won our 4 OOC games and our 2nd tier bowl game?
 
#190
#190
JP, it sounds like your issue is with the discussion itself.

2016 ended the way it did, and it allows the questions to be asked......again.

had it ended differently, maybe a trip to Atlanta, or New Orleans in the sugar bowl, i'm sure the sunshine pumping crowd would be equally vocal in their "told ya so's" regarding all things Butch Jones.

and there'd be a segment of negavols riled up because "they just know butch sucks and 2016 is an aberration, how could you all be so blind, the East sucks and we had the best team we've had in a decade".

the disagreement, as you put it, is what's more likely based on what we've seen and why? 8-4/7-5 or 9-3+? and then, based on that result, what should happen with the direction of the program? that's all this discussion is about....

one of those outcomes could be that we go 9-3, have a legit shot at the East again, and then the narrative changes to "what a good job Butch Jones did to get all the chemistry and development issues taken care of in such quick order".

so this is what we have to pick apart regarding what people think might happen, and how it would affect the trajectory of the program.


and yes, we'll all find out this fall. nothing is written in stone in April. it's all off season fodder. nothing more.
 
#191
#191
BeardedVol said:
Maybe some fans don't put as much stock in bowl game appearances/wins, or OOC wins as much as you?

Until we are winning the conference, those wins are nice, but ultimately meaningless except for chest-thumping, and CBJ's current conference record stands as:

2-6
3-5
5-3
4-4

You can shout "9-4" all day long, but 4 years under Butch when UT still isn't competitive in the division, much less the conference, what does it matter that we won our 4 OOC games and our 2nd tier bowl game?
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you can't preach "jones lost the division by crapping the bed 2 years in a row", and then say "he's not competitive in the division".

either he sucks and he has no shot at winning it from the jump (not competitive), or, he can compete for the division but continually finds a way to come up short --late game collapse against FL '15, or late season collapse '16 (competitive).
 
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#192
#192
BeardedVol said:
You can shout "9-4" all day long, but 4 years under Butch when UT still isn't competitive in the division, much less the conference, what does it matter that we won our 4 OOC games and our 2nd tier bowl game?
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They have been competitive in the division for the last 2 years, if by that you mean they are a legitimate threat at some point late in the season to win it. They just haven't actually done it yet. It's still disappointing either way, but to say they haven't even been competitive isn't accurate.
 
#193
#193
VFL-82-JP said:
Here's what we know, LA:

5-7
7-6
9-4
9-4

Acknowledging that 2016's 9-4 truly should have been 11-2 (or at least 10-2 regular season, with an unknown bowl game and possible SEC CG beyond it), that still plots out in linear regression as a strongly positive slope. Things have gotten better for Tennessee since Butch took over.

But where this board has a HUGE disagreement is whether that curve has peaked. Some say it's going back down. Some say USCe and Vandy might've been hiccups, or growing pains, or whatever, and we can still improve toward championships with Butch.

Fact is, no one knows.

By reaching into the 2017 season, declaring that "8-4 is the common answer and that's unacceptable to some of us," you passed judgment on something Butch hasn't even done yet. You didn't have to do that. You could've made your point just using what's already happened.

Yes, there is a divide among VolNation. Yes, it revolves around whether or not Butch has peaked and should be tossed to the curb. You could've certainly said that, and had a "pretty good take" without including an 8-4 2017.

As for why I'm riled up, it probably has a lot to do with the NegaVols running rampant since the USCe and Vandy debacles last fall. The team (coaches and players) pissed me off for not going into those games prepared, and the NegaVols have been pissing me off ever since for taking advantage of it. But that's not on you, so my apologies that my angst is filtering into other conversations, like this one.
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Well, I certainly seem to be taking the brunt of your frustration, JP. :) Again, I only presented a paradigm for discussion. It was admittedly simplistic, and I used 8-4 because that seems to be the divide in most discussions. Yes, I made a judgment call there, based on the data available in many threads. It obviously upset you, which was certainly not my intent.

But no, I didn't pass judgment on Butch. If I wanted to pass judgment on Butch, I would do it and I would be clear about it. Defining a 2-year, 3-year or 4-year performance as acceptable or unacceptable does not infer that a coach should be fired... or extended... or promoted. Drawing any of those conclusions is beyond the purpose of the model. I purposefully tried to avoid that inference being drawn.

It was a misguided attempt to foster productive conversation in a noncontroversial fashion without derogatory labels. Apparently, it failed. Truce?
 
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#194
#194
jakez4ut said:
you can't preach "jones lost the division by crapping the bed 2 years in a row", and then say "he's not competitive in the division".

either he sucks and he has no shot at winning it from the jump (not competitive), or, he can compete for the division but continually finds a way to come up short --late game collapse against FL '15, or late season collapse '16 (competitive).
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Being in a 3-way tie for second in the SECe with a 4-4 record is not being competitive in the division.
 
#195
#195
BeardedVol said:
Being in a 3-way tie for second in the SECe with a 4-4 record is not being competitive in the division.
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What does "being competitive" mean to you, then?

They were relevant all year, even beating the team that won the division, but found another way to come up short. They didn't win it, but they were competitive. Not even being competitive is what this team was during the Dooley years.
 
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#196
#196
BeardedVol said:
Being in a 3-way tie for second in the SECe with a 4-4 record is not being competitive in the division.
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just pick one, you can't have it both ways.

he either sucks out right, or he sucks cause he can't close.

you can't have both. we've been competitive in the division the last two years, that's not really a debate.

you were a 4th down play away from the division in 15, and a vandy/usce game away from the division in 16.

that's competing for the division. you wanna call it a sin for not accomplishing it in either situation, i'll agree with you. by all rights, though, it was there for us to win.

it's not like we started off 0-3 in the division the last two years with no shot at it, and only have wins over the dregs of the division to show for our efforts.
 
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#197
#197
05_never_again said:
What does "being competitive" mean to you, then?

They were relevant all year, even beating the team that won the division, but found another way to come up short. They didn't win it, but they were competitive. Not even being competitive is what this team was during the Dooley years.
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:thumbsup:
 
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#198
#198
05_never_again said:
They have been competitive in the division for the last 2 years, if by that you mean they are a legitimate threat at some point late in the season to win it. They just haven't actually done it yet. It's still disappointing either way, but to say they haven't even been competitive isn't accurate.
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Were we really a legitimate thread in 2015 or 2016 though? As it stands right now, we have a built in loss to Alabama, and as of yet, CBJ has yet to be able to beat the other SECw team on the schedule.

With two probable losses on the schedule, any other SECe team can still lose to us, and still win the division. Just like Florida did in 2016; losing to us might sting, but isn't likely to derail Florida or Georgia's chances at winning the division if one of them wins the rest of their conference games.
 
#199
#199
BeardedVol said:
Were we really a legitimate thread in 2015 or 2016 though? As it stands right now, we have a built in loss to Alabama, and as of yet, CBJ has yet to be able to beat the other SECw team on the schedule.

With two probable losses on the schedule, any other SECe team can still lose to us, and still win the division. Just like Florida did in 2016; losing to us might sting, but isn't likely to derail Florida or Georgia's chances at winning the division if one of them wins the rest of their conference games.
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yes. in this SEC E 6-2 can definitely win the EAst, especially if you beat GA and/or FL. and as it proved out in 2015, had we beaten FL, we'd of won the division even though we lost to ARK and Bama.

same in 2016. even losing to aTm and Bama, just beat the back half and we were good to go.

not sure why it's ok for FL to win the division if they lose to us, but it's not ok for us to win the division if we lose to them?????

and GA and FL have to play LSU and Auburn. sure, that's not Alabama, but those are far from gimmie wins for those two.

just say you hate butch jones regardless, and quit trying to make up reasons to.
 
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#200
#200
05_never_again said:
What does "being competitive" mean to you, then?

They were relevant all year, even beating the team that won the division, but found another way to come up short. They didn't win it, but they were competitive. Not even being competitive is what this team was during the Dooley years.
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Well for starters, it would mean still being in contention for the SECe at the end of October, which has yet to be the case. In 2015 and 2016 we've been out of contention for the SECe with 3 conference games still left to play.

You can argue that we were "competitive", in individual conference games, but that does not equate to being competitive as contenders for the division, not when your fate is sealed barely past the half way point.
 
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