Tennessee Vols: CBS Sports Misses The Mark With Butch Jones Ranking

CBS Sports ranked the coaches from Power 5 conferences and the rankings weren’t kind to Tennessee Vols head coach Butch Jones.

I’ve been critical, at times, of Tennessee Vols head coach Butch Jones.

When Jones has deserved praise, I’ve given it. When he’s deserved criticism, I’ve also given it.

More than anything, I’ve tried to be fair. I want to see Jones succeed at Tennessee. I have no agenda when it comes to him — I call it like I see it (and I’m aware we don’t all see it the same, but that’s to be expected).

And that’s why I’m going to defend him, to some degree, when it comes to his ranking in CBS Sports’ recent rankings of all 65 Power 5 head coaches.

According to CBS, Butch Jones is the 52nd best Power 5 head coach. I’m not trying to convince anyone that Jones is among the elite coaches in college football, but he’s better than 52nd.

Here’s what CBS says about Jones:

"A Champion of Life, but not a champion of our rankings. Still, in my opinion, this is a pretty steep drop considering all the injuries Tennessee dealt with last year. Raised expectations will do that, though."

To be fair, they do have Jones above Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason and Georgia’s Kirby Smart (though I’m not sure that’s fair to Mason, considering he out coached Jones in the 2016 matchup between Vandy and Tennessee).

But where I take issue with the ranking is when I see Jones ranked below coaches like Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson (who was a big factor in Phillip Fulmer being pushed out as the Vols’ head coach, thanks to his “Clawfence”) and Boston College’s Steve Addazio, among others.

CBS praises Addazio for winning seven games in three of his four seasons in the ACC. Butch Jones, on the other hand, has season win totals of 7, 9 and 9 in his last three seasons — in the SEC.

I’m not sure how that adds up, but that’s on CBS.

Like I said, Jones isn’t an elite coach. But we can’t overlook the fact that he’s had some decent success in the SEC. Have his teams underperformed at times? Absolutely.

But have his teams showed incredible resolve when their backs are against the wall? Without a doubt.

More from Tenn Truth

Derek Dooley had plenty of talent when he was the head coach at Tennessee. The 2012 Volunteers had one of the best offenses we’ve seen in the SEC in a long time, but that team still finished with a 5-7 record (Dooley was the winning coach in four of those games).

You can’t just show up at Tennessee and win games. You have to be a decent coach, regardless of talent, to get results.

Jones obviously hasn’t provided the results that are expected at Tennessee, and eventually he will have to answer for that (if the doesn’t meet expectations in 2017).

But to say that Jones is a worse coach than Bronco Mendenhall, who just led Virginia to a 2-10 record and was ranked as the 32nd best coach by CBS, isn’t quite fair.

Jones might not be the coach that is going to lead Tennessee to their next national championship, but he’s certainly a better coach than folks give him credit for being.

Home/Tennessee Sports