I've been thinking about this one for a while - did Butch Jones really think his style/system/philosophy would translate to elite winning in the SEC. What I think is - maybe Butch Jones was never a guy passionate about winning championships. Maybe he's a career builder interested in making a very good living, and he's managed to do a good job of that. Maybe the TN job was the brass ring of status and income - he arrived - and not about opportunity for championships, and he wasn't convinced he could win. who knows.
but a lot of comments here are spot on - brick by brick, champions of life, you got my back. all BS. Butch Jones is a very good MAC coach, he'll be back head coaching somewhere once that TN cash runs out.
I've come to see Butch as an entertainer who happened to choose college football as the particular arena for his career.
He only knows as much about football as he needs to get the gigs. He doesn't feel any great curiosity in the details of the sport, and so will never really be a true football coach.
But he loves to entertain. And he sees football--heck, I"m sure he sees all sport--as just another form of entertainment. No different than rock bands, hollywood, TV. It's all just entertainment to him.
Which, let's be honest, it is. BUT. But you can't have a coach who thinks of it in those terms, or he will never be very good. To a coach, the game must be all-encompassing. It has to be, if you're going to work 18-hour days for six months of the year, followed by six months of recruiting-recruiting-recruiting and oh yeah recruiting. You really have to see football as an extension of life to be that dedicated.
And that just wasn't Butch. He was a carnival barker who rose to become the guy in the top hat controlling the three rings under the big top.
Which is, of course, when the tent came crashing down on all of us.
Enough about Butch. This is Georgia week, we have mangy curs to hate.
