The frustrating and horrific 2017 season Tennessee is going through has only intensified the already white hot ire from the fan base towards Butch Jones. “Fire Butch” signs are popping up everywhere, and it's impossible to go 30 seconds on social media without seeing something about Butch being an incompetent, in-over-his-head loser. "Fire Butch" is well on it's way to becoming the Vol fan equivalent of "Roll Tide".
At this point, I really just feel beaten down over the entire situation, powerless to do anything but observe this man "Butcher" four or five winnable games a year. My anger over the entire situation quickly subsided
into sadness, which then transitioned into straight up apathy. It’s basically
impossible for me to care about anything that’s going on with the Vol program this
season. As they celebrated, danced, and show-boated their way to an unimpressive 14 point win
over Southern Miss, the only thing I could think about was, “Great, but wouldn't it have been nice to beat Florida!” And when Rashaan Gaulden doubled birded an Alabama fan
after Daniel Bituli’s 97 yard interception return two weeks ago, my first thought was, “Hey
brah, I appreciate the passion, but you’re down 28-7. Kinda seems hollow and
pointless to be doing that now right?”.
No matter how bleak it’s
been this season, I've been able to take solace in the fact that there'd be a new coach in Knoxville in 2018. I mean, if your
opinion of Butch is anything other than, “He’s a gym teacher and a glorified
coordinator who has read one too many Tony Robbins’ books, oh yeah, and he should be fired immediately”, then you’ve
probably undergone a forced, Phineas Gage-style lobotomy. There was no way a rational person could look at the Tennessee situation a think everything that had happened the last few years was totally fine and acceptable.
But the fact that he’s
still the coach makes me wonder if everyone has been wrong this entire time. We’ve
assumed too much. Instead of asking, “When is Butch getting fired?” instead,
unfortunately, I think we should be asking, “Are we sure Butch is getting fired?”
Think about it: Look at
what he’s survived:
- 0-5 record against Alabama
- 1-4 record against Florida
- 2-3 record against Georgia
- 2-2 record against Vanderbilt
- No SEC East Championships in 2015 or 2016 when he had BY FAR the deepest and most talented team in the division
- Three blown 13+ point leads in 2015
- Chose to start Nathan Peterman before the 2013 Florida game, which led to the worst half of quarterback play in Tennessee history
- The 10-9 2014 Florida game
- The 2015 Florida game
- Presided over horrendously bad first halves in almost every 2016 game
- The 7 turnover game at Texas A&M
- Started Justin Worley over Josh Dobbs in 2014, only to have the season completely turn around once he inserted Dobbs into the starting lineup during the Alabama game
- Allegedly punched Mack Crowder during practice in 2015
- Hired Larry Scott, a guy who had never called plays before, to be his offensive coordinator before the 2017 season
- Lost the last game of the 2016 season WITH A SUGAR BOWL BERTH ON THE LINE when the Vols suddenly couldn’t cover the “fleet footed” white guys in the Vanderbilt receiving core.
- Allegedly kept Brett Kendrick in the Kentucky game for 2+ quarters even though he had a concussion
- Committed the ultimate coaching malfeasance at the goal line during the third quarter of this year’s Florida game
- Allegedly bullied the VFL coordinator into resigning
- Presided over Tennessee’s 2017 season being virtually over before October 1
- The offensive touchdown drought that lasted 15 quarters
- “Champions of Life”
- “Five Star Hearts”
- “Fake News”
- “Leadership Reps”
- “We did everything to win the football game except score touchdowns”
- Every other “Butchism”, including “don’t know how to win yet”, “Brick by Brick”, “Situational Football”, “Execution”, etc.
- Had multiple players like/share criticism of him online
- Became a laughing stock to the local and national media
- Became the most reviled coach in the history of Tennessee athletics
And yeah, I’m sure I left
some stuff out. There’s been a lot of screw-ups down there the last 4+ years.
Hell, I think it’s fair to ask at this point what Butch would have to do
to get fired. Get caught with a horse in his bed? Have a drug test come back
positive for bath salts? Start a bar fight with a bachelorette party? Run through the T flipping the bird and holding hands with Osama Bin Laden? Worse than any of that?
But because they're feckless idiots, Tennessee athletic department has been intent on making every
possible excuse imaginable for Butch. Hell, I can't think of a coach with that much baggage AND that little success in the
history of college football who has survived as long as Jones has. But the fact
that he has makes me think he’s going to be back in 2018.
Are they too damn cheap
to pay his buyout? Do they think the Tennessee fans are idiots that they have by the balls? Or are they delusional enough to think
everything’s fine?
Last Monday, after the Kentucky game, Athletic Director John Currie broke his silence on the Butch situation by doing a friendly, non-adversarial interview with Vol play-by-play man Bob Kesling. It was certainly... eye opening. Here are a few of his quotes (in bold):
“The
surgeon’s creed is there’s no problem you can’t make worse by operating”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure the
surgeon’s creed doesn’t include a double negative. Honestly I’m not even sure
what he’s saying. Is he saying that he’s going to operate, or that operating always makes things worse, or that it just does sometimes? What?
“You’ve got to make decisions that you believe
are best for your program. I believe that supporting our staff and supporting
our players, getting ready for the Southern Miss game, is the best I can do for
our football program right now”
I mean, I’m pretty sure Tennessee, with or without Butch, would’ve beat
Southern Miss this week. And since that's the case, how exactly is Butch being around “the best thing for the
program”? Wouldn’t it be better for the program to be searching for his replacement right now?
You know, getting ahead, giving the new coach time to lock down Butch’s
recruits,, and give whoever it ends up being time to implement the early building blocks of the successful program we all want? Oh wait, that’s right! I’m
an idiot! Everything is fine! There’s no need for any of that nonsense because Butch is
returning next year!
“That’s been one of my practices the whole
time. The nine years I’ve been an athletics director, I always try to go into
the building on Sunday — win or lose.”
“Hey Butch, tough loss.
But don’t worry about it, we don’t really care if you’re an incompetent underachiever,
you’ve got my full support, and you’ll definitely be back for 2018. Plus, we
love the coach speak. Those guys in the athletic department have been slapping
your ‘Brick by Brick’ catchphrases on T-shirts, mugs, banners, and everything
in between for years now. Turning a mean profit too! Unfortunately, we’ve
pretty much milked all of them dry at this point, so a few of our boosters were
wondering if you had anymore bullshit for us?”
“Our players played so hard through the whole
game. They never let up.”
Wait a second… are we sure Butch didn’t hop on the line and answer this
question? Because that seems an awful lot like something he would’ve said.
“The bottom line is, one of the reasons I came
back here to the University of Tennessee is that this is a national program
with a national following and incredibly passionate and fevered fans. That
knife cuts both ways. You’re excited when you win, and you’re disappointed and
angry when you lose. It’s the same for the staff and the AD and the players
too.”
Thanks, John, we had no idea the Tennessee fan base was that passionate.
We couldn’t tell from you getting killed on Twitter when you tweeted about the
men’s tennis team or the next wave of renovations at Neyland.
And when Currie presented
the aforementioned Neyland renovations on Thursday, he did nothing but double
down on all the coach speak and nonsense he espoused earlier in the week. Are
we sure this guy should be running a major athletic department? Does Tennessee
have the Butch Jones of athletic directors and the Butch Jones of football
coaches at the same time?
Which is why I don’t
think Butch is getting fired, the fan base be damned. Butch is a nice guy
(unless you’re the Vol For Life coordinator) who keeps his players out of
trouble and eligible. Profits are high. Butch is relatively cheap compared to
what they’d have to spend on a quality, high-level replacement, and his buyout
would be expensive. Why would anyone expect Tennessee, an athletic department
that’s always been comfortable going cheap on coaches, to suddenly
reverse course and start acting like they’re as big as they are? Plus, they still have a chance of going to four straight bowl games! Can't move on from that!
Programs like Alabama,
Florida, Ohio State are alpha male athletic departments that find losing unacceptable, and because of this, they don’t have any problem cutting ties with losers and splurging on their replacements.
They’ve figured out that if your goal is to win championships in major college football,
that’s the only way to do it. Florida fired Jim McElwain after he won the SEC East in
back-to-back years because they knew he was a dolt who wasn’t capable of seriously
contending for SEC or national titles. The lying about death threats was just
the catalyst for that to happen. Tennessee, on the other hand, is a beta male
program who rolls the dice every time and says, “Oh golly gee, I hope Louisiana
Tech’s coach works out! His daddy used to coach in the SEC! Let’s see how
little we can pay him!” And then when that coach screws up and underachieves,
they throw their hands up in the air and replace him with another unproven chump
with a flat top and five hundred too many bad catchphrases. And when that doesn’t
work out, they double down on coach speak and give him more chances than a father
gives his spoiled and immature trust fund son.
And thus, we’ve reached
the crux of the issue. How much is too much? How long before the fan base
starts abandoning the team in droves? It’s never going to happen, right? I know
I’m never going to refuse to tune in to a Tennessee game, and I can’t foresee a
scenario where the years-long season ticket holders are going to suddenly stop
paying for tickets. The big TV money is going to continue coming their way, and
the fans are always going to be hopeful (or delusional) enough to talk
themselves into things getting better. I don’t see a fan revolt happening when
Butch returns in 2018. Are people going to be pissed? Hell yeah. But are they
going to give up on the program entirely? I don’t see it. #emptyneyland didn't work. And if the coffers
are still full, what motivation does Currie have to change things?
All of this, more than anything, is why I drink. My liver and shortened life expectancy thank you.
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