Honest Conversation with Butch Jones: What happened at Tennessee?

#76
#76
lukeneyland said:
Yep. Pruitt actually left Josh some good players on offense
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They sure wouldn’t have been good under Pruitt. He ran the worst offense I’ve ever seen. Iowa would’ve been a perfect fit for Pruitt, at least offensively.
 
#77
#77
headhunter15 said:
This right here. He was night and day better than Dooley and Pruitt.
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I don’t think you can say that when he went 0-fer in the SEC. They all sucked. Maybe Jones had the highest ceiling of the 3 but he clearly also had the lowest floor.
 
#78
#78
IfDickeyStayed said:
Pruitt left Heupel with Hendon Hooker, Cedric Tillman, Jalin Hyatt, Cade Mays, Cooper Mays, Alontae Taylor, and Darnell Wright? The roster in shambles stuff was way overplayed
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Hendon Hooker was an afterthought QB.
Cedric Tillman had 8 total catches.
Jalin Hyatt had 20 catches
Cade was good
Cooper hadn't established himself.
Alontae was great when Heupel got here.
Wright was great when Heupel got here.

Of your top 7 players Pruitt left Heupel, only 3 were worth bragging about before Heupel turned them into something.

the roster was in SHAMBLES. 3 of 22 guys were proven SEC quality players, that is a BAD team.

and thats not even touching the complete lack of depth behind those guys.
 
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#79
#79
Jones initially recruited very hard and got some momentum after a couple of years.

He got lucky and landed Dobbs who bailed his terrible offense out time and time again.

The "pretend zone read where every running play is a slow developing draw because the QB isn't really allowed to read" offense is what I called it. Of course that made me a nega. But it didn't work when Dobbs was no longer there to improvise.

I suspect he had a low football IQ. Also, based on the many coaching departures, I suspect nobody wanted to work for him and he was left with a terrible staff at the end.
 
#82
#82
LouderVol said:
what was actually in the video, the parts that you did watch? I haven't seen anyone actually commenting on the actual contents of the video.
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He bragged about HIS players HE recruited at other schools to make himself look better.

Oh, he did say where he got his Butchisms from to deflect the negative consternation they caused.
 
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#83
#83
Let’s summarize. Dooley and Pruitt never got head coaching gigs again. Dooley because he was terrible and odd. Pruitt because he was terrible, he’s a rube and couldn’t win even while cheating like crazy. Butch Jones only gig (aside from washing Saban’s car) has been living in coaching purgatory in Jonesboro, AR. I suppose one could say that qualifies him as better but that ain’t saying much.
 
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#85
#85
OrangeBeachVol said:
Even AL fans made fun of him while he was there. Agree he did nothing for AL FB. He had to find a job in FB to keep getting his buyout $ and he got Saban to hire him as an analyst. Paid him $30K/yr so he could collect his millions from TN. It all was just him screwing TN. And then you have the cigar thing after the win.

No respect for him at all.
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Exactly. Never seen a guy work so hard not to find a job that didn’t involve him being a glorified secretary
 
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#88
#88
VolatileVol said:
Much of the same reasons his mentor, Brian Kelly failed. However, the most notable thing I noticed about Butch's tenure is AAAAAA High School football teams in Georgia had more size than we did when he coached. First thing Okra did when he took over for Butch was replace all the 180lb guys with 220lb guys which seemed like common sense all along.
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I love okra
 
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#89
#89
People giving Pruitt the edge over the others because of the talent he left actually makes my point not theirs. Pruitt was the worst because he actually had a good roster and still couldn’t win
 
#90
#90
Delmar said:
Let’s summarize. Dooley and Pruitt never got head coaching gigs again. Dooley because he was terrible and odd. Pruitt because he was terrible, he’s a rube and couldn’t win even while cheating like crazy. Butch Jones only gig (aside from washing Saban’s car) has been living in coaching purgatory in Jonesboro, AR. I suppose one could say that qualifies him as better but that ain’t saying much.
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It's a very low bar but of the 3, Jones is definitely the best coach.

Dooley had a HC job at Louisiana Tech before UT. He was 17-20 at LT, 15-22 at Tennessee for a career record of 32-41 and 1-1 in bowls.
Pruitt has only had the 1 HC job at Tennessee. He is officially 5-19 since his 2019 and 2020 victories were all vacated, but if you count them he was 16-19 and 1-0 in bowls.

Jones rode the Brian Kelly train for sure but he had 2 HC jobs before Tennessee; 27-13 at Central Michigan (0-2 in bowls) but won 2 MAC Championsihps, then 23-14 at Cincinnati (1-0 in bowls) and 2 shared Big East Championships. He ended up 34-27 at Tennessee and 3-0 in bowls, and as you said he actually has gotten another HC job since and while he hasn't been great he has kind of gotten them from terrible to average Sun Belt team.
 
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#92
#92
It's Vols or nothing! said:
He actually overperformed here for how much of a MAC coach he truly was. Tennessee imo made the right hire at the time as we couldn't get anyone,
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That is false. UT for whatever reason chose not to spend the money to get someone good. They then evaluated Jones very poorly including the likelihood that he would "fit" Volnation. UT rightly fired Fulmer who was long past his prime then wrongly hired 3 guys who had no business whatsoever coaching at the SEC level.
It's Vols or nothing! said:
however he shouldn't have been the coach here that long. His job was to pretty much reestablish a foundation, he's not the type of coach that would lead you to a natty. He overs stayed his visit and made things worse long term. Didn't help that our fabase was trying to use the smokey mountain fire situation as leverage to give him more time just because he donated

Can't believe this clown got a win over Georgia lmao
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I don't think his job was to establish a foundation... and he wasn't the type of coach who would ever threaten the top tier. He in fact HAD the talent to challenge. He was just a flat terrible coach in every respect. The worst part was probably his inability to create a functional culture and manage players. People blame Hurd but Butch Jones destroyed his career.... mostly by lying to him. People handle tough truths better than manipulative lies.
 
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#95
#95
hUTch2002 said:
0-8 is all you need to know. No matter how bad Dooley and Pruitt were, they didn’t go 0-8.
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Go watch the first series on offense and defense of the 2018 opener against WVU.
That was a harbinger of what was to come and most anyone with a little bit of football knowledge could see this team was very poorly coached.
 
#96
#96
GetYouSomeofThat said:
Go watch the first series on offense and defense of the 2018 opener against WVU.
That was a harbinger of what was to come and most anyone with a little bit of football knowledge could see this team was very poorly coached.
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What he did against GT was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. We somehow lucked out a win but that was the worst strategy ever. A close second is running read option the entire year with a QB who doesn’t run. Butch was not a good coach and was definitely not clearly better than the other 2 mentioned. He was better in moments and worse in others.
 
#99
#99
For you astute psychology majors, after being paid millions, why did Butch do so much stupid stuff such as the cigar picture and blame losses at Arkansas State on Tennessee fans (among other things)? Was it because of the embarrassment of failure? If so, why couldn’t he have accepted that with his millions like other fired coaches? Seriously asking this question.
 
#100
#100
What Jones should have said - “Tennessee is a destination job. It’s a career pinnacle. I really wanted to be the head coach there, but I didn’t think I’d have the chance. Tennessee was in a rough patch and needing to make a hire. I’d had some success as a head coach following Brian Kelly’s path up the coaching hierarchy, and during this time, I led Cincinnati to Neyland to play Tennessee. After that game, I remarked publicly about how great an institution and program Tennessee is and how I’d like to coach there. Maybe those words helped my candidacy, because AD Dave Hart reached out with an offer. Admittedly, I was in over my head from the outset, but I truly wanted to succeed at Tennessee. The odds weren’t in my favor and the breaks did me in in 2017. We did some good things, stabilizing the program academically and recruiting well… Ah… the transition after Dobbs… the breaks didn’t go our way. The SEC is an unforgiving conference. If I’d been able to continue, I’m confident we would have put the program back on track, played for championships. The SEC. Yeah.”
 
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