Monday Coach Jones Presser

[SoonerSpock]

After watching Butch's presser I continue to feel very strongly that he is the right coach for Tennessee. He has the Vols headed in the right direction. Unfortunately coming from where you were to where you want to be takes infinitely more time than the fans want, which is normal. I know that for a fact, as I was a fan in the stands when OU went through those transitions in the '60's and the '90's. In the 90's it took the Sooners multiple coaches just as what Tennessee is going through.

Butch is recruiting the talent, probably better talent than OU is getting over the past 3 years. With two more recruiting classes like those and two more years experience you will in all probability be in the hunt for the conference championship annually.

Unfortunately getting fans to have patience is next to impossible. Kind of like parents raising kids. We want them to always be perfect when in fact it takes close to two decades go get the job done. Probably only going to take Butch 4-5 years to get Tennessee back to where the need to be.

 

[dbowen]

It's as if people here want confirmation from our head coach that he's a bad game manager to somehow make themselves feel better.

Agree. Rematch the game. Some criticism warranted some not. Either way we need to learn and move forward to conference play

 

[dbowen]

I thought Mosely played a pretty good game.

Mosely did play well. Mali unfortunately was lost at key times

 

[dbowen]

Kirk Herbstreit, Marcus Spears and Booger McFarland all picked UT to win the East. Herbie has more credibility than most analysts, so that was good for the program.

They'll be backing off now, though-- not because we lost to OK, but because, once again, we choked up a good lead in the 4Q. We have a reputation for losing to ranked teams and rivals, and we just validated that. It wouldn't be surprising if every ESPN and SECN analyst picks UF over UT, simply because of our tendency to lose big games.

He also picked OUTings the playoff

 

[08Vol]

This is crazy talk. You want to be known as TCU playing cupcakes every week? Their non-conference schedule is why they didn't go to the playoffs. Having teams like OU, Oregon, UCLA visiting Neyland and vice versa is not only good for the team in terms of competition it's also great for the fans and great for college football. Who wants to see Ole Miss beat UT Martin 72-3? I sure dont. It's bad for the game in general and win or lose, we aren't too scared to schedule tough OOC games. We are not a chicken **** program.

We may not be a chicken **** program, but Sat night showed we sure as heck aren't a winning program. But I guess it's good we played a hard hitting team that knocked 4 of our players out of the game two weeks before the UF game.

 

[walkenvol]

Kind of like parents raising kids. We want them to always be perfect when in fact it takes close to two decades go get the job done.

Obviously someone who doesn't have children over 20 years old....no magic age when the parenting ceases....at least that's what my 79 year old father says.

 

[ProudVOLfan]

IF we beat FL all will be forgiven, if not it I'm certain it will get ugly around here ,unfortunately.

 

[lilesrt]

This is crazy talk. You want to be known as TCU playing cupcakes every week? Their non-conference schedule is why they didn't go to the playoffs. Having teams like OU, Oregon, UCLA visiting Neyland and vice versa is not only good for the team in terms of competition it's also great for the fans and great for college football. Who wants to see Ole Miss beat UT Martin 72-3? I sure dont. It's bad for the game in general and win or lose, we aren't too scared to schedule tough OOC games. We are not a chicken **** program.

I did not say we should schedule teams like UT-Martin.. Whats wrong with playing out of conference teams like UNC, VT, Boston College, Maryland, USF, Miami, etc.. These teams are decent, would draw a nice crowd, and are WINNABLE. Please help me understand what we accomplish by playing Oregon, and then hitting the toughest in conference schedule in the nation? It is a recipe for keeping your butt at home come bowl time, which is EXACTLY what happened. Tennessee isn't good enough to play these teams right now. Our record proves it.

 

[Specks]

We may not be a chicken **** program, but Sat night showed we sure as heck aren't a winning program. But I guess it's good we played a hard hitting team that knocked 4 of our players out of the game two weeks before the UF game.

This is football, not tiddly winks.

Should we not play teams like Bowling Green either? We had players hurt in that game also.

We will not become a winning program by playing teams like UT Martin. You learn very little when you win 72-3 or whatever the score was. Win or lose I loved having OU here in KNX. It's great competition and once again it's great for college football in general. You will not experience the atmosphere in Neyland playing cupcakes. Saturday night was electric.

 

[Carl Pickens]

Kirk Herbstreit, Marcus Spears and Booger McFarland all picked UT to win the East. Herbie has more credibility than most analysts, so that was good for the program.

They'll be backing off now, though-- not because we lost to OK, but because, once again, we choked up a good lead in the 4Q. We have a reputation for losing to ranked teams and rivals, and we just validated that. It wouldn't be surprising if every ESPN and SECN analyst picks UF over UT, simply because of our tendency to lose big games.

I agree. The Vols need to move to the OVC now. They'll never be a meaningful contender in the SEC ever again.

 

[Specks]

I did not say we should schedule teams like UT-Martin.. Whats wrong with playing out of conference teams like UNC, VT, Boston College, Maryland, USF, Miami, etc.. These teams are decent, would draw a nice crowd, and are WINNABLE. Please help me understand what we accomplish by playing Oregon, and then hitting the toughest in conference schedule in the nation? It is a recipe for keeping your butt at home come bowl time, which is EXACTLY what happened. Tennessee isn't good enough to play these teams right now. Our record proves it.

And Toledo beat Arky this past weekend. What looks better, a double OT loss to OU or a loss to Toledo?

You say Maryland, Miami, etc are winnable, was this past game not also? The goal of being an upper tier team is that you can play other top tier teams and win. I'm sorry I just don't get the notion of being afraid to play the best.

 

[sjt18]

... but didn't do anything wrong and wouldn't change much if anything.

That's basically what Jones said today in his press conference. It is difficult not to lose respect after listening to it.

When asked if he considered going for it at the one, he became very defensive with the reporter. When asked if he thought the playcalling was a problem, he said there were only a few he'd consider changing. When asked about Hurd vs Kamara on 3rd down, he excused that decision and said the play that was "right" for Kamara rather than Hurd and that Hurd was tired.

He implied that game week prep didn't have the right effort.

Nothing schematically wrong... just didn't have all 11 players working together... and drops. Someone always doing something wrong in the passing game...

Needed someone to make a play late in the game to make the FG call the right call.

Inexcusable penalties. Too many negative yardage football plays... but not because of the scheme or play calls.

Effectively without saying the actual words... he blamed almost everything on the players failing to execute his near perfect strategy and playcalling. What wasn't their fault, was the fault of "luck" or referees or just a credit to OU.

Most disappointing of all is that he said they did what they wanted to do in play calling. He said there weren't but a couple of calls he would have changed.

He DID say that as the HC and caretaker that he was responsible... but from then refused to say he or his staff were responsible for any of the decisions that cost UT the game.


The bottom line is that he has no intentions of changing what he or his staff are doing. If he truly believes they did everything the right way and made all the right decisions... then why change?

 

[alexbond45]

"Why did Kamara take the snap at 3rd and 1?"

"Well, Jalen had taken a lot of carries so he was winded and so Alvin went in and we have a lot of confidence in Alvin. It was a designed cutback play, which fits Alvin a lot more, and we just failed in the point of attack"

 

[Grey_pilgrim]

No one's calling for Butch's ouster, just saying he did a poor job Saturday night and a lot of us just want to see him take responsibility for it, that's all. He made the statement at the beginning of the presser, but then pretty much just said that all the decisions were right, that the coaches did a great job putting the players in the right positions to succeed and that the players need to execute and finish better. So, the rest of his presser was very much incongruent with his opening statement. But whatever, I'm personally ready to move on and look forward to Saturday. The blown opportunity from Saturday is done.

You and many others "We want Butch to take responsibility for this loss. He's the head coach and this is on him."

Butch "I take full responsibility for the loss. I'm the head coach and I own the loss."

You "Well he said it but he didn't mean it. He should've said this then followed it up with that."

Jeez there really is no pleasing some of you.

 

[CJBlaze]

In my opinion CBJ owned up to the fact that he is responsible. Good enough.

Now with that being said do you really think that by coming on here and constantly insulting other fans because of their opinions expressed on a message board that you accomplishing anything other than being insulting (or an ass depending on how one looks at it)? This does nothing more than fan the flames. What gets me about posters like you (and several others) is that you seem to be passionate about the game yet are intolerant of others that are obviously just as passionate that express themselves in a way that differs from yours. They have just as much right to express themselves on a message board (discussion forum) as you do.

Excellent post!

 

[sjt18]

You and many others "We want Butch to take responsibility for this loss. He's the head coach and this is on him."

Butch "I take full responsibility for the loss. I'm the head coach and I own the loss."

You "Well he said it but he didn't mean it. He should've said this then followed it up with that."

Jeez there really is no pleasing some of you.

GO for it. The link is posted. Listen to that press conference and tell me how many mistakes or bad decisions he believes he made.

I doubt you have the courage to do it. I am VERY disappointed in his poor game strategy and now just as disappointed in his doing lip service to taking responsibility then blaming everything on player failures.

To his credit, he never specifies a player. But there was little responsibility taking in there.

 

[sjt18]

In my opinion CBJ owned up to the fact that he is responsible. Good enough.

.

Other than the first minute or so... quote the portion where Jones said he or his staff were responsible for a decision that contributed to the loss. Virtually EVERYTHING was about some player failure.

 

[Vato]

I do not get this at all. I have said I would have felt better with a shootout 42-38 type loss than this one but its over, it happened and we move on. Its not the loss that hurts its the way we lost...again.

I fully support Butch and his staff although the second half play calling looked like someone called CPF and asked what they should do. You cannot sit on a lead like this.

As someone else stated, if your offense is not moving the ball and you are going to rely on your defense to finish the game why rush snaps? That is my BIG problem. One coverage segment I saw said we averaged snapping the ball at 23 seconds left on the play clock and how snapping at 5 seconds or less would have eaten over 6 minutes off the clock. I just cannot decide if we were trying to milk the clock or trying to score with very very conservative play calling and hoping to get lucky and break one?

For me its not that we lost, its how we lost and trying to make sense of what the "goal" was after halftime. Was it to win or not lose?

It sucks but our D showed up like times of old. Losing curt really hurt us bad. Also need a solid MLB and someone to step up at DT. Proud to be a Vol fan. GBO

 

[McDad]

Other than the first minute or so... quote the portion where Jones said he or his staff were responsible for a decision that contributed to the loss. Virtually EVERYTHING was about some player failure.

Do you disagree with CBJ that the program is making progress?

 

[UTVolinExile]

Other than the first minute or so... quote the portion where Jones said he or his staff were responsible for a decision that contributed to the loss. Virtually EVERYTHING was about some player failure.

Agreed. For me, my insincerity alarm went off when Butch justified the 4th and 1 FG with "analytics." I'm sorry, but if the head coach supposedly is accepting responsibility for a mistake, and that was THE mistake of the game, IMO, then we never hear the "a" word. Butch says "the buck stops with me, I take responsibility, and in hindsight, I made the wrong call there." That at least would have told us that, as we like to say in the recruiting forum, "Butch gets it."

Instead, he "accepts responsibility" in the most general sense, and then goes on to demonstrate that he doesn't really believe he made any mistakes.

 

[Specks]

"Why did Kamara take the snap at 3rd and 1?"

"Well, Jalen had taken a lot of carries so he was winded and so Alvin went in and we have a lot of confidence in Alvin. It was a designed cutback play, which fits Alvin a lot more, and we just failed in the point of attack"

That's exactly what he said. Some people only want to hear what they want to hear.

 

[LA Vol]

I agree. The Vols need to move to the OVC now. They'll never be a meaningful contender in the SEC ever again.

Insightful. Perceptive. Well thought-out. Kudos.

 

[KBVol]

We were predicted to go 7-5 to 8-4 and 2nd in the East by pretty much every non-homer media member and college football gurus. OU was 4 spots higher in the polls for a reason. Would've been an upset if the Vols could have came out on top. They probably would have won easily if they weren't in bad field position for most of the game.

They were in bad field position because we were thoroughly outplaying them...their bad field position wasn't a coincidence. We were up 17-0 and 17-3 because we were the better team for the majority of the game.

 

[ReaderVol]

Other than the first minute or so... quote the portion where Jones said he or his staff were responsible for a decision that contributed to the loss. Virtually EVERYTHING was about some player failure.

Actually he said "I'm the head coach and I'm responsible for losses" in other words anything wrong is on him.
Notice he didn't say "any losses is on me and I get credit for wins"
He owned it. You're just reaching.

 

[lilesrt]

And Toledo beat Arky this past weekend. What looks better, a double OT loss to OU or a loss to Toledo?

You say Maryland, Miami, etc are winnable, was this past game not also? The goal of being an upper tier team is that you can play other top tier teams and win. I'm sorry I just don't get the notion of being afraid to play the best.

The Volunteers have lost 28 of their last 29 games against ranked teams and are 2-34 versus the Top 25 since 2008. I have to tell you, the numbers do not back your logic.