Butch's case is certainly more complex than the NegaVols have made it out to be. We had a certain contingent here from Year 1 onward that claimed Butch was no different than Derek Dooley. There's simply no comparison between the two; Dooley's teams went 5-19 in SEC play and 2-14 in the last two seasons. Jones is 14-19 in SEC play and 9-7 in his last two full seasons. Jones built this program back up to respectability and back into the top half of the SEC. Jones has recruited well consistently and has changed the culture for the good. He's run a clean program. The only thing he hasn't done is prove he can get us to that next level.
The question is whether he's Bo Pelini or Dabo Swinney? Both Pelini and Dabo were stuck at around the same space that Butch is stuck at now for a long time. Dabo eventually made the right coordinator hires and broke through to the top echolon of college football. While I think Bo Pelini was better than given credit for, there's little doubt that he was just kinda stuck in the "good, but not great" category. Every season was 9-4 or 10-4 with some major disappointing losses and after awhile, the fans lost hope that they'd ever see improvement beyond that.
Even the comparison to Ron Zook is starting to look applicable. If Butch continues getting top 10 classes, but can only go 7-5 or 8-4 with them, that was really the Ron Zook MO at Florida.
I can't really fault Ainge or anyone else for still being behind Butch 100%. I was until the Florida game. I still support him, but you can say my skepticism has increased a bit after watching us losing to an inferior Florida team due to poor coaching decisions. I get that Dormady hasn't played too many big games before and he's going to make mistakes, but I still fault the coaches for constantly putting him in the position to make those mistakes.
