You don't get it, whoever we hire will be an improvement over Butch.
OK when making a football coach change, these are the people we don't need to listen to. Including those who say things like, "I know ND sucks but look at BK's body of work." Hello!!! Then what grounds are you firing Butch on?
I can't support Butch. I am not going to scream fire him, but I can't make any arguments for him either. I said let the season play out. It has, barring a bowl game win or loss that doesn't make too much of a difference to me as to my opinion of Butch Jones' and staff's performance this year.
The reality is we would be crazy to fire him with 3 years left on his contract. MAYBE it wouldn't be if we found a homerun hire. But even then, we would be so in the hole with Butch that we probably would not be able to afford the new hire. And if we tried to, we better hope that works because we certainly can't afford to go in the hole with Butch only to hire some big name who also ends up a bust. Our program would be devastated like never before.
Smartest thing to do is stay put and just see what happens. If our team looks worse, but our financial situation looks better, then we at least will have more buying power--and proven/available coaches on the market. I think coaches will be more likely to come here then as well, because we stuck with our coach.
It also gives our coach the opportunity to prove he can get over the 8-4 hump. I do hope he changes the way he approaches the media and demonstrates better ownership and proof of introspect. The way he is talking to the media right now is a bit ridiculous and makes you wonder about his grounds on which he has to expect his team to accept constructive criticism if he can't own his mistakes and shortcomings. If I am a kid, I am noticing that.
Butch needs to change his tone and change it fast or he will continue to lose his fans, media and worse--his players. I know what he meant when he said we are champions of life. I won't scoff at that. But wrong answer Butch. And to answer his question, YES HE HAS mentioned SEC Championships and National Championships and it began as soon as he got here. We miss our first chance and it can't be a part of the conversation any longer? That is where all he deserves to be commended for with his off the field success begins to become unraveled.
Own your 5#!+ Butch! Fact is, he promised better and we came up short this year. He needs to find a better way to accept that fact as we have to as fans and publicly own it and make us believe he will NOT accept this as our standard and will get better. I do think he needs to make less coaching decisions down the stretch. Not fielding the football at the end of the SC game and going for it on 4-4 last night is inexcusable. Noone in the country agrees with Butch. Analysts in ESPN were unanimously dumbfounded along with everyone else in the nation.
I hope Butch can get his head screwed on straight. Have a Kumbaya with his players, take some yoga, figure out a good way to approach the situation and give it a good go over the next 3 years. As of next year, he is still playing with three top ten recruiting classes and if he can hold this other class together, maybe 4.
