Why did Butch Jones get us so close, where Dooley and Pruitt didn't?

#76
#76
He was big on hype, recruiting, and aesthetics. That plays really well in his target demo (16-22 year old men). So he got talented players that were having fun. Grey jerseys, popular music, etc created an atmosphere that guys that age wanted to be a part of.

He failed at in game coaching. If he was even a mediocre play caller with an ounce on poise he would still be here.
 
#77
#77
VolBricks said:
let's think about this....
Josh Dobbs
Alvin Kamara
Jalen Hurd
Cam Sutton
Todd Kelly Jr.
Marquez North
Von Pearson
Juan Jennings
Edit: Josh Malone
Yeah I think it is about the Jimmy's and the Joe's
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The fact alone that he left Kamara sitting on the bench instead of moving hurd to a different position and making him the full time back should void his right to ever coach a single meaningful game again anymore.

Of course, if memory serves me right his partner in crime was the same damn OC who left Brady sitting on the bench for years at Michigan so I guess I'm not too shocked.

But as others have said....it was Dobbs.
 
#78
#78
VolBricks said:
let's think about this....
Josh Dobbs
Alvin Kamara
Jalen Hurd
Cam Sutton
Todd Kelly Jr.
Marquez North
Von Pearson
Juan Jennings
Edit: Josh Malone
Yeah I think it is about the Jimmy's and the Joe's
Click to expand...
I agree, but I won't take that away from Butch or any coach that wins with talent alone if they brought them in. I do fault him, Dooley, Pruitt for many errors in coaching, vision, hiring, etc, etc...but Butch and Pruitt largely recruited to a top 25 talent threshold, in my opinion...just didn't coach to it. And, a good QB covers many sins...Dobbs did that, and we've not had an equalizer QB since.
 
#80
#80
We don't go bowling Butch's second season if it weren't for Dobbs; he pretty much single handidly won the SC game.

His 2015 was probably his best team. Should have beaten Oklahoma, had Alabama on the ropes, lost a crazy finish to Florida; Arkansas was the only real no doubt about it loss that year.

The 2016 choke job was the proof that we had peaked with him.
 
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#81
#81
Butch recruited pretty well, but really it shows what having an really good QB does for a program.
 
#82
#82
Jones had some game changers, Dobbs, Barnett, Kamara, Hurd (when he’d play), Malone, JJ, Sutton, etc. on both sides of the ball. Dooley didn’t have as many.
 
#83
#83
Florida and Georgia were both down and Butch's RPO system was efficient enough with guys like Dobbs, Kamara, and Hurd.

I also think Butch while not a great coach, was a good motivator and good with PR. He built alot of hype around, recruited well, and filled the stadium to the brink. His guys would run through a wall for him.

Unfortunately, not very good at in gane management and very poor talent developer. When all his recruited talent either transferred or left early for the NFL the developmental guys did not step up. It was obvious it was inherited/recruited talent and not his coaching ability as for why he had any success.

I do think he deserves better than Arky state.
 
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#84
#84
Glad to see these men discussed objectively without all the flame=throwing. Butch had energy and passion for the program following the Dooley and Kiffin projects. Wonderboy Kiffin did a whale of a lot of damage in one season. Dools was an extreme reach hire as was Pruitt. Dooley negotiated his contract well and was oh so close with the North Carolina and LSU games in pulling out a statement win. Butch could do well at Arkansas State and bounce back to another opportunity at a bigger school. Butch was burned out totally when he left and the program crashed around him. Dormady and JG sure could not replace Dobbs. I agree that Butch deserves total credit for recruiting Dobbs, Kamara and others and the success he had - it just was not sustainable.

Pruitt has left a reasonable SEC roster behind for Heupel - much better than Jones left. If Pruitt had been able to coach in 2021, I think with the schedule he could have made it. Of course the NCAA issues stopped that debate in its tracks. I am still puzzled over the Brumbaugh incident. Was that the sign of a meltdown like occurred with Butch or a badass response to motivate his team? It really had a bizarre look at the time. Pruitt realistically did lack the management skills to direct a program and even with Covid, and the reality of rebuilding a program vs. "coaching up" a roster of 5 star athletes was an eye opener. I think Fulmer and Pruitt were concentrating on rebuilding the talent base with aggressive SEC recruiting and they were close to succeeding with that until the boys were careless in rival recruiting territories with the goodies.

I predict Josh Heupel will be at UT at least 7 years or so as the 3-4 year coaching cycles are totally worthless in building a program. UT must not become a coaches graveyard with wholesale instability year after year. White as AD and Josh should be given a long leash to bring the program back to at least mid-level SEC status and fan support. Odds are there never will be another situation with a cursed qb like JG and the bizarre coaching change scenarios like Schiano, etc. etc. and a soap opera atmosphere surrounding the football program for an entire decade. Josh Heupel may be the best hire of the post-Fulmer coaches and I wish him and the program much success moving forward. I like to see some respect for the group of coaches (except Kiffin) who gave a solid effort but did not succeed in rebuilding the Tennessee football program.
 
#86
#86
I wholly reject the question because it was all Dobbs (tho not to diminish other good players roles).
 
#87
#87
Jax_Vol said:
Butch is the best coach of those three. He just didn't handle adversity very well. I think he will have success at Arkansas State.

Dooley was the worst coach...by a large margin.
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Dooley’s team would have beat the hell out of Pruitt’s teams.
 
#88
#88
Dooley - focused more on offense and less on defense
Butch - focused on pixie dust and recruiting
Pruitt - focused on defense and no clue on offense
 
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#89
#89
Brave Volunteer said:
Obviously it's pretty much a consensus that our last 3 coaches weren't the answer. However for whatever reason, Butch Jones got us pretty damn close to where we wanted to be. We came SO close (and should have) to winning the east two straight years! Rather than dwelling on the reasons why Butch blew it, I would like to look at it from another point of view. What did he do right to get us that close where the other two coaches couldn't even sniff that much success? Was it recruiting? Was it motivation? Was it luck? I'm just curious as to how Butch almost touched success here where the other two weren't even close.
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This is not an attack on you at all.

Part of the issue in Knoxville is the should have mentality. We have won ONE national title since I have been alive which is almost half of a century. Based on most coaches’ performances when inheriting a dumpster fire, we shouldn’t have anything. Yet, Butch came in and almost beat Bama with a much less talented roster, almost beat Oaklahoma, beat #19 Georgia, beat #11 SC, Florida, Georgia again and almost beat Bama during one of their playoff years and and lost to an 11-2 Oklahoma team in double overtime. He was a 3 time MAC champ in 4 years and a Big East Champ. He took Cincinnati from the bottom to the top. He has a better resume than any coach that has coached here since Majors. Period. But guess what, the should have mentality led boosters and fans to bitch and moan over the loss to Oaklahoma and meltdown against FL and dissect his staff.

It is clear, no one wants to coach at Tennessee and it has everything to do with what goes on around TN football and the meddling of the boosters. We blamed the dumpster fire Kiffin left, but Kiffin had an awful resume. Then we blamed Dooley, but why did we even hire him? Because no one any good wanted to coach here. Then we blamed Butch for his bad season, but he had already done better than anyone else we had since Fulmer. Then we fire him and we end up with a guy who had never been a HC. Now we blame Pruitt, who in my opinion was pretty bad, but the boosters meddled with his staff too.

If we want to do well, we need to stay the F*** out of the way. Period. Nothing is ever good enough. ONE NC in 53 years and we think we should be anything better than what Fulmer did the year before we fired him, which was a 10 win eastern division championship.

Seriously, it is our faults. We deserve this 100%.

Regardless, Jones’ original staff would have gotten us the East at least at some point. By the time he was gone, the best he had left were people he had never coached with. He was on an island.

If we get to 9 wins with this staff in three years people better stick a sock in it.
 
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#91
#91
QB play. Butch had good assistants from time to time, but most of them bailed on him. I thought he never recovered from losing Jancek. I think if he’d had Debord and Jancek all the way, he would have gotten over the 19 win hump. But he was still a phony. They were recounting the time he showed up at Tee Higgins bball came. Came in with uniformed security and sat away from everyone. Dabo just plops himself down in the middle of the bleachers. Shakes hands and signs autographs.

Dooley wanted to quit as soon as he got here. He didn’t have the factor to be a head coach, and time has born that out to be true.
History will show that Pruitt should never be a head coach, period. Maybe he is a defensive genius. Having seen him for three years I am utterly shocked that he had so much success as a DC.
 
#92
#92
Already dozens of responses that touch on it, but simple answer ... Josh Dobbs. Those 2015 and '16 teams actually underperformed. Dobbs, Kamara, Malone, Sutton, Jennings, Shy Tuttle, Cam Sutton .... those teams were stacked! That's playoff level talent and Butch still only went 9-4.

Pruitt's SEC record was actually better than Butch's in spite of playing in a tougher East than Butch.

Butch also had Bajakian as OC the first two years and he did a good job of developing players on offense and his offenses played very disciplined. Once Bajakian left, I think it was more difficult for Butch to sustain success, because Butch is actually a lousy coach. He ran the S&C program into the ground and he seemed lost when it came to hiring offensive coaches.

Of the 3, I still think Pruitt was the best. But I think Pruitt was a poor leader, tried to micro-manage, and ran an outdated offense. Oh ... and he was a bad cheater. But we had the talent to go at least 6-4 least season if Pruitt would've just got out of his own way and benched JG.
 
Last edited:
#94
#94
I keep reading on here about how the East was down during Butch's time as HC and all that. And it's true...but Tennessee never won the East despite that fact. Tennessee should have beaten Florida in three straight seasons, 2015-2017; instead there was just 2016. They did beat UGA in two consecutive years, thanks to the Dobb Nailed Boot to JJ in 2016. But...they didn't take care of other business in those two seasons, largely because of Butch's lack of in-game coaching ability; the 2016 Vandy and USCe games immediately come to mind. Butch may have been the best of the unholy trinity in terms of overall record, but the question of what could have been really diminishes that record.
 
#95
#95
Brave Volunteer said:
Obviously it's pretty much a consensus that our last 3 coaches weren't the answer. However for whatever reason, Butch Jones got us pretty damn close to where we wanted to be. We came SO close (and should have) to winning the east two straight years! Rather than dwelling on the reasons why Butch blew it, I would like to look at it from another point of view. What did he do right to get us that close where the other two coaches couldn't even sniff that much success? Was it recruiting? Was it motivation? Was it luck? I'm just curious as to how Butch almost touched success here where the other two weren't even close.
Click to expand...
Legacy classes + peer recruiting.
 
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#97
#97
Most of the difference is the QB position. Butch had a talented QB in Dobbs with tons of RB talent. Butch should have won the East, but choked and lost the team. Dooley had Tyler Bray who was crazy talented, but lacked discipline and we had no defense. Pruitt never had a QB, so it make the whole team look worse.
 
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#98
#98
Dooley's down fall was abysmal defense

Pruitt's down fall was abysmal offense

Butch had the combination of a pretty good offense and defense but he couldn't win when it mattered. Either blowing a lead or losing in final moments.
 
#99
#99
Butch was decent coach. A decent coach should win the games that he won. He just wasn't a good coach, and it showed in the big games.

That, and he lied to his players and disregarded their well being.
 
#100
#100
Gandalf said:
While I still think Pruitt and Dooley for that matter are good coordinators, they couldnt make the jump to program CEO. Butch did have that experience. Butch knew football much less than either Pruitt or Dooley but he was lucky. Pruitt had the unfortunate luck to be left with JG instead of Dobbs, who saved Butch's butt time and time again. Butch also had BOTH Kamara and Hurd (and actually started Hurd over Kamara). I am convinced that if Pruitt had had those 3 and not have had the locker room sickness left from Butch, we would have been speaking about how Pruitt was a top coach. Maybe later he would have gotten exposed - maybe not. Often, you need to be lucky until you can grow into the position. Didnt happen for him or Dooley tho.
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One of Pruitt's downfall points was he would not deviate from JG come hell or high water, until it was too late, coupled with the inability of coaches to develop the other QBs. Pruitt boxed himself in--bet all money on JG and a blind man could see that JG just couldn't hack it. Did the coach(es) put too much on JG, maybe. JG was always a step or two behind making the decision to throw the ball. He gave the effort but just came up short. Pruitt's stubbornness is what brought Pruitt down.
 
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