Coach Butch Jones Appreciation thread

[VFL-82-JP]

Sure you can. When Dooley left his relationships or lack thereof with coaches left with him. As you explained above Jones came in with a different approach and that totally changed with his first 2 legitimate classes 14' and 15' being the evidence.
You can admit Dooley was terrible but also feel that the level in which some would like to apply it to recruiting was not the level it actually was. And that is in regards to what Jones had to fix when he got here. Jones really didn't have to "fix it" he just had to give the effort that good recruiters across the country do. And to Jones credit he did that. He wasn't Dooley.

Beecher, you're pursuing a totally different discussion. This one is about whether Kiffin or Dooley is responsible for our Dark Ages. (and, p.s., you're actually agreeing with what I said earlier)

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Yeah - totally agree. These high school coaches might have been turned off by Dooley personally, but the positive feelings they had about the University were still there.

Dooley was incompetent and in over his head in many ways, recruiting just being one of them. It sounds like Butch came in, smoothed things over with some coaches who still liked the program anyway, and simply began recruiting competently like any coach worth his salt would.

Heh, you know you just completely agreed with me. Dooley screwed it up, Jones fixed it. Kiffin nowhere in the picture.

But then you have to try to bring Kiffin into it again, somehow...

Again, Dooley was a doofus but he did not leave a mark on the program that remained after he was gone. The person who did that was Kiffin, and remember Kiffin's departure directly led to us getting Dooley in the first place. Kiffin leaving after a year is what was truly damaging to the program and set it back 3-5 years.

So now, your argument about Kiffin being the Big Evil (and Dooley only being, what, the Little Evil?) is that Kiffin leaving forced us to hire Dooley?

Which, if you think about it means you're actually agreeing with me again, blaming Dooley ... but trying to blame Kiffin for Dooley. Or something.

Anyway, neither of those former coaches was worth a spit. Dooley was worse for us, because he had three full years to screw things up.

 

[BeecherVol]

Yeah - totally agree. These high school coaches might have been turned off by Dooley personally, but the positive feelings they had about the University were still there.

Dooley was incompetent and in over his head in many ways, recruiting just being one of them. It sounds like Butch came in, smoothed things over with some coaches who still liked the program anyway, and simply began recruiting competently like any coach worth his salt would.

Again, Dooley was a doofus but he did not leave a mark on the program that remained after he was gone. The person who did that was Kiffin, and remember Kiffin's departure directly led to us getting Dooley in the first place. Kiffin leaving after a year is what was truly damaging to the program and set it back 3-5 years.

I find that to be a really interesting dynamic with our fanbase. "Kiffin" is the most hated word in a Tennessee fan's vocabulary, but I bet if you ask what person set the football program the most, a majority would say Dooley. And I can't disagree more. The only two reasonable answers to that question are Kiffin and Mike Hamilton.

The bold is spot on. It had more to do with when he left than anything he did or didn't do while he was here.

 

[BeecherVol]

Beecher, you're pursuing a totally different discussion. This one is about whether Kiffin or Dooley is responsible for our Dark Ages. (and, p.s., you're actually agreeing with what I said earlier)

I was responding to the bold.

Man, that's totally not true. Dooley single-handedly destroyed our program's relationships with high school coaches all across Tennessee and surrounding states, he alienated former Vol players and coaching staff, he mocked our own players with the press, denigrating them for his own amusement, he alienated boosters, the list of people he pissed off with his imperious leadership style is all but endless....

I mean, Kiffin was a train wreck of NCAA proportions diverted, because he left so quickly that most of the damage he would've caused didn't have time to take root ... but Dooley took what was there and drove it right down into the ground.

Please accept my sincere apology:hi:

Hopefully a Mod will come along and get this thread back on topic.

 

[Iam4utalways]

Actually, I'd say Team 119 was the one that brought Tennessee football back to competitiveness. We beat Georgia that year, and ended the season 9-4. Team 120 was a bit of a plateau from 119, with some pluses (Bristol, Florida) and some setbacks (USCe, Vandy).

So yeah, think you gotta point at 119 as the "we're back in the hunt" squad. Here's hoping 121 is the "we're back winning championships" gang.

Go Vols!

119 started 2-3

120 started 5-0

That's where I was coming from.

Either way, we are back on the map.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

The bold is spot on. It had more to do with when he left than anything he did or didn't do while he was here.

Okay, well, you just joined 05 in saying it's all Kiffin's fault because Kiffin is the reason we got Dooley. So anything bad Dooley may have done, it's Kiffin's fault. Got it.

 

[05_never_again]

Heh, you know you just completely agreed with me. Dooley screwed it up, Jones fixed it. Kiffin nowhere in the picture.

But then you have to try to bring Kiffin into it again, somehow...



So now, your argument about Kiffin being the Big Evil (and Dooley only being, what, the Little Evil?) is that Kiffin leaving forced us to hire Dooley?

Which, if you think about it means you're actually agreeing with me again, blaming Dooley ... but trying to blame Kiffin for Dooley. Or something.

Anyway, neither of those former coaches was worth a spit. Dooley was worse for us, because he had three full years to screw things up.

If Dooley "screwed it up" as you suggest, then Butch (or any future coach) would not have been able to repair those relationships, or at least repair them so quickly.

The fact that Butch came in and within 2 years had a top 10 class, then had a top 5 class right after that, suggests to me that any "damage" Dooley caused was pretty superficial and didn't truly change any coaches' opinions of the football program as a whole or the University of Tennessee. Dooley was just a bad recruiter, that is all.

And yes, I'm blaming Kiffin indirectly (and Mike Hamilton directly, since he hired Kiffin) for Dooley. Kiffin leaving put Tennessee in a such compromised position that it forced us to hire someone like Dooley, who, depending on if you believe what was reported at the time, was actually the best looking candidate among those who said they'd take the job. Yes, that is how bad of a position we were in.

Derek Dooley was a symptom/an unfortunate outcome of the problem. Kiffin was the disease.

Geez, you really like arguing over a pretty simple point.

 

[05_never_again]

So anything bad Dooley may have done, it's Kiffin's fault. Got it.

That's a straw man and you know it. Kiffin isn't responsible for any specific action Dooley himself took while coach (e.g., choosing not to recruit certain players).

It is directly because of Kiffin, however, that the University was in a position of having to hire someone like Dooley in the first place. If Hamilton didn't hire Dooley, he would have hired some other marginal coach who likely would have achieved very similar results, because only marginal coaches were interested in the job given the sorry state of the program. That aspect of the situation is all on Kiffin and Mike Hamilton.

 

[BeecherVol]

Okay, well, you just joined 05 in saying it's all Kiffin's fault because Kiffin is the reason we got Dooley. So anything bad Dooley may have done, it's Kiffin's fault. Got it.

"All"?
No reason to jump "all" in on that agreement. Its like saying "no one" lol:

Dooley was terrible, Im not sure anyone has said anything to the contrary. Kiffin is also the reason he was here. And in the big circle of things Dooley is the reason Jones got a shot.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

If Dooley "screwed it up" as you suggest, then Butch (or any future coach) would not have been able to repair those relationships, or at least repair them so quickly.

The fact that Butch came in and within 2 years had a top 10 class, then had a top 5 class right after that, suggests to me that any "damage" Dooley caused was pretty superficial and didn't truly change any coaches' opinions of the football program as a whole or the University of Tennessee. Dooley was just a bad recruiter, that is all.

And yes, I'm blaming Kiffin indirectly (and Mike Hamilton directly, since he hired Kiffin) for Dooley.....

Derek Dooley was a symptom/an unfortunate outcome of the problem. Kiffin was the disease.

Geez, you really like arguing over a pretty simple point.

I've already described for you exactly how Jones could (and did) fix all the relationships Dooley broke, in time for a top 5 signing class a year later. My description was based on my recollection of the many articles that were written about it at the time. I'm not going to rehash it again, you can go back and read the earlier post.

As for blaming Kiffin for anything Dooley did to hurt us, I'm amazed you can't hear yourself. You're literally giving Dooley a break on anything he did to hurt the program, and laying the blame for all that on Kiffin because his departure is the reason Dooley got hired. Can you not hear how silly that sounds?

These are simple points, but you keep not getting them. I don't like arguing the points, but I also don't like anyone saying, "Okay, Dooley was fine, it was Kiffin who screwed the program up for five years." That's just dumb, and deserves a response.

 

[Behr]

Lol.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

"All"?
No reason to jump "all" in on that agreement. Its like saying "no one" lol:

You need to go back and read all 05's previous posts, Beecher. I'm not the one who brought "all" into it.

 

[05_never_again]

These are simple points, but you keep not getting them. I don't like arguing the points, but I also don't like anyone saying, "Okay, Dooley was fine, it was Kiffin who screwed the program up for five years." That's just dumb, and deserves a response.

Where in here have I said Dooley was fine? I'm pretty sure I've referred to him as a doofus, generally incompetent, and an awful recruiter in this thread. Dooley was an awful coach - I've said absolutely nothing to the contrary. You are misinterpreting my point about how it wasn't actually Dooley who set the program back 3-5 years as some type of complement or endorsement of him.

I'm merely asking the bigger question, which is what was the circumstance that led to Dooley's arrival at Tennessee in the first place? I'll say again, it was Lane Kiffin's departure (and Hamilton's hiring of Kiffin) that created the conditions for someone like Dooley to have to be hired in the first place, and he is the one that truly set the program back.

You are like a manager directing most of your anger at the low-level employee who was set up to fail by a middle manager, so bears more of the actual responsibility. Dooley was set up to fail - no doubt about it. Direct your anger at the people who set him up to fail.

 

[BeecherVol]

You need to go back and read all 05's previous posts, Beecher. I'm not the one who brought "all" into it.

You quoted my post with that assertion which was false. I agreed with him that Kiffin was the reason Dooley or someone of his caliber ended up with the job. Not that he didn't suck and play his own part in it. You must have glossed over my comments on Dooley to get there.

You took one thing I bolded out of his entire post that I agreed with and went off the assumption deep end with it.

 

[jakez4ut]

If Dooley "screwed it up" as you suggest, then Butch (or any future coach) would not have been able to repair those relationships, or at least repair them so quickly.

The fact that Butch came in and within 2 years had a top 10 class, then had a top 5 class right after that, suggests to me that any "damage" Dooley caused was pretty superficial and didn't truly change any coaches' opinions of the football program as a whole or the University of Tennessee. Dooley was just a bad recruiter, that is all.

And yes, I'm blaming Kiffin indirectly (and Mike Hamilton directly, since he hired Kiffin) for Dooley. Kiffin leaving put Tennessee in a such compromised position that it forced us to hire someone like Dooley, who, depending on if you believe what was reported at the time, was actually the best looking candidate among those who said they'd take the job. Yes, that is how bad of a position we were in.

Derek Dooley was a symptom/an unfortunate outcome of the problem. Kiffin was the disease.

Geez, you really like arguing over a pretty simple point.

i agree with your overall point....but on Kiffin alone, yes, his leaving physically caused the spiral, but the opportunity for that to happen...that's on someone else.

i, like you, blame MH and the powers that be with the lion's share of the mismanagement of how all of it went down, and even allowed that possibility to exist in the first place.

i remember when we hired Dooley, cause you have a key point....best looking candidate that SAID HE WOULD TAKE THE JOB....., i told my dad that this would end badly, but it really wouldn't be his fault. at that point, it was all hope. there was zero reason to believe Dooley would be "the guy". the situation sucked.

the leadership on the hill, on the whole, has been mostly pathetic in how it's handled these issues in the last decade.

 

[BeecherVol]

i agree with your overall point....but on Kiffin alone, yes, his leaving physically caused the spiral, but the opportunity for that to happen...that's on someone else.

i, like you, blame MH and the powers that be with the lion's share of the mismanagement of how all of it went down, and even allowed that possibility to exist in the first place.

i remember when we hired Dooley, cause you have a key point....best looking candidate that SAID HE WOULD TAKE THE JOB....., i told my dad that this would end badly, but it really wouldn't be his fault. at that point, it was all hope. there was zero reason to believe Dooley would be "the guy". the situation sucked.

the leadership on the hill, on the whole, has been mostly pathetic in how it's handled these issues in the last decade.

:good!:

 

[peppervol]

i agree with your overall point....but on Kiffin alone, yes, his leaving physically caused the spiral, but the opportunity for that to happen...that's on someone else.

i, like you, blame MH and the powers that be with the lion's share of the mismanagement of how all of it went down, and even allowed that possibility to exist in the first place.

i remember when we hired Dooley, cause you have a key point....best looking candidate that SAID HE WOULD TAKE THE JOB....., i told my dad that this would end badly, but it really wouldn't be his fault. at that point, it was all hope. there was zero reason to believe Dooley would be "the guy". the situation sucked.

the leadership on the hill, on the whole, has been mostly pathetic in how it's handled these issues in the last decade.

Totally agree, jake. BTW, a belated congratulations on the Stanley Cup win. It broke the whole city's heart the way it went down, but, the Finals run was the most electrifying sports story since I moved here in 1968 and yes, even more than the Titans Super Bowl. The Preditors playoff run up to the Cup brought out more passion city-wide than I have ever seen in this town. Great for Nashville; great for hockey. See 'ya next season.

 

[jakez4ut]

Totally agree, jake. BTW, a belated congratulations on the Stanley Cup win. It broke the whole city's heart the way it went down, but, the Finals run was the most electrifying sports story since I moved here in 1968 and yes, even more than the Titans Super Bowl. The Preditors playoff run up to the Cup brought out more passion city-wide than I have ever seen in this town. Great for Nashville; great for hockey. See 'ya next season.

thanks, and agreed. Nashville did itself proud. had they not been playing the Pens, i'd of been in the Preds corner...

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Ok, 05 and Beecher, you're both just wrong. I can only think of one other way to try to explain it to you. A thought experiment.

We're going to take Nick Saban, and have him succeed either Kiffin or Dooley, and see how long it takes him to set the boat right.

CASE ONE: Saban Follows Kiffin
-- '08, Fulmer is fired. Kiffin comes in.
-- '09, Kiffin trolls Urban Meyer, turns out Kiffin was the idiot ... Kiffin tries to turn recruit hostesses into "hostesses," ends up the punch line in a book about corruption in sport ... Kiffin goes 7-6 (4-4 SEC), losing to Va Tech in the Chick-Fil-a Bowl. Kiffin leaves town for the USCw siren song. SABAN IS HIRED.
-- '10, Saban shuts down the "hostess" thing, shuts up all his assistant coaches, and gets down to football. With a fairly decent roster, he goes _____ (what do you think? 8-4? 9-3? 10-2?) in his first year, and then gets hot on recruiting and is competing for championships the very next year ... Tennessee football is right back in the mix, as if the Kiffin year never happened.

...and compare that to...

CASE TWO: Saban Follows Dooley
-- '08, Fulmer is fired. Kiffin comes in.
-- '09, Kiffin trolls Urban Meyer, turns out Kiffin was the idiot ... Kiffin tries to turn recruit hostesses into "hostesses," ends up the punch line in a book about corruption in sport ... Kiffin goes 7-6 (4-4 SEC), losing to Va Tech in the Chick-Fil-a Bowl. Kiffin leaves town for the USCw siren song. Dooley arrives.
-- '10, Dooley insults our own players, gets a taste for it ... gets kinda imperious ... goes 6-7 (3-5 SEC), losing to UNC in the Music City Bowl.
-- '11, Dooley turns making fun of our own players into a habit, seems really proud of himself for trashing them ... Dooley tramples relationships with a number of key high school coaches in the state, and with some key boosters ... also begins making it harder for former Vols players and coaches to come back into the program ... players start to show resentment, in off-field antics, including some stop going to class, and on the field where it is rumored the QB and friends intentionally threw the final game because they couldn't stand the idea of going to a bowl with this coach ... team goes 5-7 (1-7 SEC). The wheels are coming off.
-- '12, Dooley begins his piece de resistance season, utterly alienating everyone associated with the program who wasn't already pissed at him ... some high school coaches are quoted as swearing they will never recommend another of their players go to Tennessee ... meanwhile, Dooley's own team is in open revolt ... practically all the talent on the roster has left or will shortly ... the team goes 5-7 (1-7 SEC) again. Finally, it's enough; Dooley is fired, and SABAN COMES ABOARD.
-- '13 -- Now, I don't care how good you think Saban is, he's not going 8-4, 9-3, or 10-2 with the roster at this point. And he's going to have to spend a year doing the same kinds of things Butch Jones in fact did, repairing relationships, reestablishing links, and so on, before he can start refilling the roster with talent. Fact is, the recovery curve might have been a little steeper with Saban, because we all acknowledge he's a better sideline coach than Butch, but he still couldn't get there without having to fix everything Dooley broke. So it would still be 2-3 years before he was able to compete for championships.

The point? Kiffin's one year was a blip. A blip that could easily have been overcome with a decent AD and a good coaching hire. Dooley's three years, in contrast, were a full-out scouring of the program.

It wasn't Kiffin that drove us into the ground for the better part of a decade. That was largely on Dooley.

 

[Behr]

I didn't read all of it. Knew where it was going because I got it a page back.

Kinda like cigarettes don't kill you, you kill you because you smoke them.

 

[05_never_again]

CASE ONE: Saban Follows Kiffin

Just stop right there, because everything else that follows is a total non sequitur. Your cases would be neat to run in a computer simulation or something, but I'm talking real world.

The point that I have been trying to make all day is that Dooley (or someone like him) was hired because Kiffin left so abruptly in the first place and rendered the job, which had already lost some sheen after Fulmer was fired, even more unattractive to top coaches.

The absolute best Hamilton could hope for was an average at best coach, with the high likelihood of having to hire a marginal coach as the best available, which is exactly what he did. And that's all on Hamilton, nobody else.

Coaches even approaching adequate levels of skill, much less the skill of guys like Nick Saban, did not want the job. This isn't a difficult concept to understand.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Just stop right there, because everything else that follows is a total non sequitur. Your cases would be neat to run in a computer simulation or something, but I'm talking real world.

The point that I have been trying to make all day is that Dooley (or someone like him) was hired because Kiffin left so abruptly in the first place and rendered the job, which had already lost some sheen after Fulmer was fired, even more unattractive to top coaches.

The absolute best Hamilton could hope for was an average at best coach, with the high likelihood of having to hire a marginal coach as the best available, which is exactly what he did. And that's all on Hamilton, nobody else.

Coaches even approaching adequate levels of skill, much less the skill of guys like Nick Saban, did not want the job. This isn't a difficult concept to understand.

Well, that's pure supposition, 05. I don't think the Tennessee job was tarnished at all, at that point. The job was still very attractive, it's just the TIMING that was off. With a better AD, the timing issue could've been played better to our advantage.

We were never 'destined' to get Dooley in late 2009. Tennessee could have gotten a far better coach than Dooley if we'd had an AD worthy of the title.



p.s. Just because some Tennessee fans and students felt like brides left at the altar by a rapidly-departing Kiffin, and so THEY felt tarnished maybe, tarnished enough to burn their mattresses in the street, that does NOT mean that the coaches of the college football world suddenly saw the Tennessee job as some sort of cuckolded second-rate marriage. All that drama and emotion was confined entirely to the Vols fan base.

 

[jakez4ut]

Well, that's pure supposition, 05. I don't think the Tennessee job was tarnished at all, at that point. The job was still very attractive, it's just the TIMING that was off. With a better AD, the timing issue could've been played better to our advantage.

We were never 'destined' to get Dooley in late 2009. Tennessee could have gotten a far better coach than Dooley if we'd had an AD worthy of the title.



p.s. Just because some Tennessee fans and students felt like brides left at the altar by a rapidly-departing Kiffin, and so THEY felt tarnished maybe, tarnished enough to burn their mattresses in the street, that does NOT mean that the coaches of the college football world suddenly saw the Tennessee job as some sort of cuckolded second-rate marriage. All that drama and emotion was confined entirely to the Vols fan base.

05 is right on this one, and around 8 candidate iirc said no thank you either to an offer or simply while guaging interest.

Dooley was bad. Awful. But he was just the "next" bad, awful thing that happened during that time period.

 

[BeecherVol]

You need a break 82.

Your second swing was no better than your original misplaced assumption.

 

[BeecherVol]

Tennessee could have gotten a far better coach than Dooley if we'd had an AD worthy of the title.

Thats thick with it.