Vols Football: Butch Jones Proves How Out Of Touch He Is

Tennessee Vols head coach Butch Jones once again made headlines with his cheesy lines on Thursday.

If you’re a college football coach, you want your program to get plenty of attention.

That is, of course, unless that attention comes to you via being roasted by most of the national media.

Butch Jones is learning that the hard way. At least I hope he’s learning something.

On Thursday, Jones managed to top his “Champions of Life” quote that he famously quipped at the end of the 2016 season, by offering up a doozie.

“We want five-star hearts and five-star competitors” is what Jones said at Tennessee’s recruiting celebration in Nashville on Thursday, according to 247Sports.

As you can imagine, Twitter instantly lit up with folks taking shots at Jones’ choice of words.

Honestly, I do understand what Jones is saying. You have to have guys on your team that are all heart and fierce competitors. But you also need five-star talent — especially if you want to win the SEC.

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Tennessee Tech, for example, might be loaded with five-star heart and five-star competitiveness. However, you saw how far that got them against the reigning champions of life back in November (they lost 55-0 to the Vols).

So that five-star talent, yeah it’s pretty important.

And you aren’t going to have kids lining up at your doorstep to come play for your school if the national media is making a living by poking fun at your program.

When you let a kid like five-star wide receiver Tee Higgins scoot out of your backyard over to Clemson, then you can’t expect fans to be very happy when you start talking about heart over talent.

Jones’ decision to defend his 2017 class with another silly saying is an extremely poor decision.

If Jones is confident in the talent that he signed, then he needs to defend it with results, not words.

And really, that’s the whole point of the outrage at Jones’ ridiculous comments.

Tennessee wins the SEC East and plays in the Sugar Bowl like they should have, and no one gives a damn what Jones says about heart and life. You go out and win 11 games and live up to the expectations and you can say whatever the hell you want.

All Jones accomplished on Thursday by uttering “five-star hearts” was turning the Vols into the joke of the day.

It’s not fair to his players. It’s not fair to his coaching staff, and it’s certainly not fair to the fans that spend their hard earned money to come out and watch Tennessee play on Saturdays in the fall.

Next: Grading Tennessee's 2017 Recruiting Class

Butch, we’re all pulling for you. But you’ve got to help us out a bit.

Just be better, for the sake of the fans, please.

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