Since 1958 (including 3 games this year) my beloved Vols have an average winning percentage of .661. In the last 60 years, we've won 10 or more games 13 times. Let that sink in for a minute. Granted, we didn't play as many games back in the day, but the percentage speaks for itself.
Coach Phil Fulmer had the most double digit victory years (8) and averaged .734 over his career, but only averaged .570 over his last four years.
Butch Jones, including three games this year, has a winning percentage of .601, and .585 his first four years.
Over the course of 12 games, using .661 as a base, the average victories per year would be 7.93 (8) wins per year. Including a bowl game, the number would be 8.59 (9) wins per year.
If Butch Jones were to match Fulmer's average (.734) this year, we would win 8.8 games (let's say 9 out of 12 games) and 10 games including one bowl game victory. Apparently, according to the experts on this board, in order to simply keep your job as Tennessee head coach, you're going to have to have a magic year every year.
Don't know where you're getting your data, Bob, but it's off.
Phil Fulmer's career win % is .745. His record was 152-52 ... or 152 wins in 204 games.
Also, the stats you chose are misleading. You say we had 13 seasons out of the last 60 with 10 or more wins. That sounds uncommon, almost rare. Less than one year in four.
But you could've instead said, and been just as true, that we've had 11 seasons in the past 30 with 10 or more wins. That's better than 1-in-3. Only 4 seasons short of half. And that's even including the entirety of our Dark Ages. Over a third of the time, we got to 10+. Sounds very different when you put it like that, doesn't it?
I understand your point about comparing Butch to Phil. Just think there are better ways to make it.
Fact is, for Butch to reach the metric that Phil set, he would have to
average about 9.7 wins per season (that's 74.5% of a 13 game season, including bowl), and get us to Atlanta at least one year of every three (6 trips to Atlanta in 16 years, for Phil).
Using Phil's metric, every year Butch has coached at Tennessee so far has been "below average." Even the past two 9-win seasons of Butch's are below the 9.7-per mark Phil set.
Put it another way: even if Butch were to win every game for the rest of this season, take us to Atlanta, win there, go to the playoffs, and win the national title, go 14-1 this season, and
then win 15-0 with Team 122 the following year, never losing a game in 2018, his career win % as a Volunteer (72.8%) would still not match Phil's.
Phil Fulmer set a lofty standard. We, many of us, don't appreciate how good a coach he was. Not Neyland, but far closer to Neyland than any other coach in our 121 year history.
So no, folks aren't saying Butch has to be as good as Phil Fulmer to keep his job. But he does have to compete for and win championships. That's the standard at Tennessee.
