Tennessee Vols: Butch Jones Could Be Coach Of The Year….Or He Could Be Fired
By Zach Ragan
2017 is a year where literally anything could happen for Butch Jones and the Tennessee Vols.
No one is quite were what to expect from Butch Jones and the Tennessee Vols in 2017.
A lot of fans want Jones gone after failing to deliver a SEC Championship game appearance in 2016. Other fans think Jones has done a great job of returning Tennessee football to relevance by winning nine games in back to back seasons.
With that in mind, it shouldn’t come as surprise that some media analysts have Jones on the hot seat entering the 2017 season, while he’s also on the watch list for the Dodd coach of the year award.
Jones is one of the 19 coaches on the watch list.
Here are the 18 other coaches.
- Paul Chryst — Wisconsin
- James Franklin — Penn State
- Justin Fuente — Virginia Tech
- Mike Gundy — Oklahoma State
- Jim Harbaugh — Michigan
- Clay Helton — USC
- Paul Johnson — Georgia Tech
- Gus Malzahn — Auburn
- Jim McElwain — Florida
- Urban Meyer — Ohio State
- Ken Niumatalolo — Navy
- Chris Petersen — Washington
- Mark Richt — Miami
- Nick Saban — Alabama
- David Shaw — Stanford
- Bill Snyder — Kansas State
- Dabo Swinney — Clemson
- Kyle Whittingham — Utah
As far as pre-season expectations go, Butch Jones and the Vols are actually in a great position entering the 2017 season.
Nearly every year a team that NO ONE was talking about ends up coming out of nowhere to jump into the top five or ten.
I’m not saying the Vols are going to be that team — based on the information in front of us, there’s no way you can make that call.
But it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
Tennessee was picked by the media to finish third in the SEC East, while Georgia was picked to win the division.
We’ve seen plenty of instances, over the last 20 years, where pre-season media predictions failed to come to fruition.
On paper, it makes sense to pick Tennessee to finish third in the division. They will have a new starting quarterback in 2017, they lost their best defensive player since Eric Berry, along with other defensive stalwarts like Jalen Reeves-Maybin and Cam Sutton. Their top wide receiver and running back left school a year early to make the jump to the NFL.
There are all kinds of reasons to expect Tennessee to regress from last season.
And that’s exactly why if Jones can exceed expectations, we could see him end up winning coach of the year.
If the Volunteers somehow win the SEC East and make it to Atlanta, in a year where many were expecting Jones to get fired, then he would absolutely be a strong candidate for coach of the year.
On the flip side, however, the Vols could easily lose six to seven games next season. They have that many “toss up” games on the schedule.
And if Tennessee only wins six games next season, there’s no way Jones is still in Knoxville in 2018.
That’s probably why this off-season has created such enormous division among Vol fans. Half of the fanbase is ready to move on from Jones, while the other half sees the potential in him.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that Jones is a decent coach. The Vols are playing their best football in a decade. Of course that’s not saying much after what Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley did to the program, but it is at least progress.
2017 is a pivotal year for Tennessee football. If UT is forced to fire Jones, they risk setting the football program back another five years.
At this point, the Vols would be smart to gamble on Jones. He provides the program with some much needed stability, even if he hasn’t helped Tennessee football return to glory.
Even though it’s not ideal, the Vols are better off winning nine games a year for now. I’m not sure the program would ever recover if Tennessee fired Jones and then returned to another dark era like 2008-2013.
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Which is why Vol fans should unite before the season starts and hope that Butch Jones turns in a coach of the year performance in 2017.