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Vols Football: Is Mike Canales A Good Hire For Tennessee?

By Zach Ragan

Dec 30, 2016; Nashville , TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones reacts to his team scoring a touchdown against the Nebraska Cornhuskers during the first half at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 30, 2016; Nashville , TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers head coach Butch Jones reacts to his team scoring a touchdown against the Nebraska Cornhuskers during the first half at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports /
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It looks like Mike Canales is the Vols’ new quarterbacks coach. Did Butch Jones make the right hire?

247Sports reported on Wednesday night that Tennessee has hired their next quarterbacks coach — Mike Canales.

The news is definitely not a surprise. The feeling has been for a while now that Canales would be the guy.

Canales is coming to Tennessee from Utah State, where he was the associate head coach/running backs coach/tight ends coach.

So is this a good hire for the Vols? That’s the big question.

Obviously it’s too early to know for sure. All we can do is take a look at Canales’ history and evaluate from there.

We can learn quite a bit from that history though.

The good news is that Canales has an extensive coaching history. He started his coaching career in 1985 as a graduate assistant at BYU. He then landed several different jobs, before ending up as NC State’s quarterbacks coach in 2001.

This is where Canales made a name for himself, simply because he was Philip Rivers’ quarterbacks coach.

Canales parlayed his success with Rivers into a gig as the New York Jets’ wide receivers coach in 2003. He then took a job as Arizona’s offensive coordinator in 2004 (he reportedly passed up a chance to be Florida’s offensive coordinator).

Things didn’t go well for Canales at Arizona. In his first season with Arizona, the Wildcats had the second worst offense in the nation. He was fired in 2006 after Arizona averaged only 16 points a game.

Here are the ranks of Canales’ offenses since 2004 (years when he was the offensive coordinator).

  • 2004: 119 (Arizona)
  • 2005: 81 (Arizona)
  • 2006: 105 (Arizona)
  • 2009: 64 (South Florida)
  • 2010: 87 (North Texas)
  • 2011: 77 (North Texas)
  • 2012: 105 (North Texas)
  • 2013: 49 (North Texas)
  • 2014: 79 (North Texas)
  • 2015: 125 (North Texas)

So those are exactly great numbers, but it’s also worth noting that Canales will only be a quarterbacks coach with Tennessee, not the offensive coordinator.

But it’s still concerning.

Canales has been in coaching for over 30 years. He’s 55 years old, he should be in his coaching prime.

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Since his days as Arizona’s offensive coordinator, however, his career has been in steady decline.

In fact, according to a story from Tuscon.com, Canales’ only job opportunities a year ago were as the wide receivers coach at Weber State and an offensive analyst at Indiana.

Fortunately for Canales, his alma mater came calling in late February and saved him from football purgatory.

That’s not exactly who you’d expect Butch Jones to be hiring as a position coach. Especially with so much on the line in 2017.

Jones gave off the illusion that he was searching far and wide for a new offensive coordinator. He did a good job of selling it too, by interviewing guys like Ken Dorsey and Chris Weinke.

But in the end, Jones again with a comfortable choice that won’t bring much to the table. It’s a hire that Jones can manage.

And he might just manage himself right out of Knoxville with this hire.

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