Tennessee Vols: Revised List Of Potential Replacements For Butch Jones

The Tennessee Vols will likely be looking for a new head coach in the near future.

Shortly after the Tennessee Vols’ poor performance against the Florida Gators, I put together a short list of coaches that I’d love to see in Knoxville.

Unfortunately, a couple of the names on that list just aren’t realistic.

So I put together a revised list of five coaches that Tennessee should definitely target, with a couple of coaches from the previous list remaining.

Coaches removed from the first list:

After looking into potential replacements, and having a week to focus on replacements, I decided to remove three names from the first list: James Franklin, Dan Mullen and Bob Stoops.

And here’s why.

I don’t think Bob Stoops is returning to college coaching. I think he’s done. Stoops was in a great situation at Oklahoma. The program was in great shape, and he was coming off back to back 11 win seasons. Imagine Phillip Fulmer retiring after the 2004 season, taking 2005 off, and then taking the Florida State job in 2006. Seems silly doesn’t it? That’s why I feel pretty confident that you can rule out Stoops.

Dan Mullen is a pretty popular name, despite Mississippi State’s blowout loss to Georgia this past week. But if Florida and Miami weren’t able to get Mullen out of Starkville, what makes you think Tennessee could? Mullen’s in a pretty good situation at Mississippi State. He makes plenty of money, and his job is relatively secure. There’s no reason for him to leave town.

The same pretty much goes for James Franklin at Penn State. He has that program in the top five. Franklin can compete for national championships there. Why in the world would he leave Penn State for a rebuild project at Tennessee? It’s simple, he wouldn’t.

So here are the five coaches that I currently feel like the Volunteers need to have a conversation with.