We Won’t Learn Everything About Butch Jones This Year, But We’ll Learn More

A number of coaches face make-or-break seasons this year. Start in the ACC, where Al Golden and Frank Beamer have a lot to prove to their fan bases. Steve Sarkisian is only in his second season at USC, but if he flops, he’ll be in huge trouble… and rightly so. He has all the talent a coach could possibly hope to oversee. Those coaches have to produce this year or face the music — maybe not to the point of being fired (though in Golden’s case, that seems likely), but certainly to the point of dealing with very stormy 2016 offseasons.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, Butch Jones doesn’t face that kind of high-stakes severity in 2015, but with that having been acknowledged, an undeniable sense of urgency is enveloping the Volunteers’ coming season.

Butch Jones remains, even now, something of a mystery as a coach. Keep this in mind: Jones replaced Brian Kelly at two separate programs, Central Michigan and Cincinnati. Moreover, Jones replaced Kelly at those programs just a few years apart — it’s not as though these were two far-removed events. Jones inherited ideal situations created by the same man, twice, in a short period of time and in the same basic period of college football history.

For perspective, consider this: What if a coach inherited one situation from a predecessor in 1981, and then inherited another situation from that same predecessor in 1998? College football in 1998 was very different from its 1981 incarnation — a coach would have needed to display a lot more dexterity 17 years later. Jones, though, took over the Central Michigan program in 2007, Cincinnati in 2010. He had the table set for him, twice, at the same basic point in the sport’s evolution as an industry. Jones was in position to succeed in Mount Pleasant and Cincy.

It is in Knoxville where Jones stepped into a tenuous situation. The Vol program was rendered unstable by the one-year wrecking ball of Lane Kiffin, for starters, but that led to the subsequent train wreck known as the Derek Dooley era. On a much broader level, all of the stumbles and frustrations of the past six years in Knoxville were made possible by Tennessee gambling on Kiffin as the replacement for Philip Fulmer instead of finding someone a lot more proven at the time.

This is the most challenging job Jones has tackled in his career. Tennessee does possess a proud football heritage, built by General Robert Neyland, one of the immortals of the sport. Fulmer and his predecessor, Johnny Majors, did much to enhance the Vols’ image, but all sorts of bad decisions from the athletic department have caused the Big Orange to fall off the map in the SEC East. Florida is an up-and-down program, but when the Gators do well, they do really well. South Carolina won 11 games and bowl titles in three straight seasons before last year’s crash landing. Missouri has come to the SEC and won consecutive East Division titles. Georgia is annually in the mix as a league title contender. Tennessee has been no better than the fifth-best team in the East the past few years, and Vanderbilt eclipsed the Vols when James Franklin found his footing with the Commodores.

Yes, it’s Tennessee, but as is the case with Miami and Nebraska and some other “name” programs, Tennessee hasn’t been Tennessee for quite some time. Jones has faced an uphill battle, lacking a smooth path paved in previous seasons by Brian Kelly.

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Entering this season, though, Jones is being viewed favorably by most pundits and commentators. His recruiting has impressed just about everyone who follows the SEC. The Vols are building depth and strength in the trenches on both sides of the ball. Everyone in and around the program knew that the Vols would need to endure a lot of growing pains; merely being able to get to a bowl game last season and derive the benefits of added bowl practices were the foremost 2014 goals for the Vols. Jones met those goals, adding to the sense that he has Tennessee headed in the right direction.

Now, it’s up to Jones to reinforce every positive belief and inclination about Volunteer football. Regressing at this point in time might not carry a make-or-break level of finality, but it’s worth noting that if Tennessee is going to stamp itself as a top-two SEC East program — something which would noticeably improve the Vols’ regional and national reputations — this is the year to strike.

Tennessee gets Georgia at home this year. That’s always a tough opponent for the Vols, who are languishing now in a way Georgia was when Mark Richt took over in the 2001 season. Richt lifted Georgia to a greater place of prominence, and that’s what Jones is trying to do with the Big Orange. Getting Georgia at home is one reason the Vols have their more favorable schedule rotation. It’s the kind of thing an up-and-coming program has to take advantage of in order to cement an ascendancy.

No SEC team is going to get all of its tough games at home, but Tennessee gets most of them in Neyland this year. Arkansas is trying to re-establish itself as an SEC power in the West, but Tennessee is able to host the Hogs in 2015, giving them another chance for a statement win in their stadium with the checkerboarded end zones. South Carolina, trying to bounce back after an awful 2014 campaign, has to go to Tennessee, where the Vols have a great chance to produce a three-game winning streak against the Gamecocks. Tennessee can create even more leverage against South Carolina with a win there, helping in its attempt to rise in stature within the SEC.

One other schedule advantage the Vols get this year: They play Florida on the road. This is a good year to be playing the Gators in Gainesville, since this is the transitional season for new coach Jim McElwain. Whether McElwain ultimately succeeds or not, coaches are generally more vulnerable in first seasons. Tennessee is happy to make a trip to The Swamp this year and then get a (possibly) more established Gator team at home in 2016.

On several fronts, the circumstances of this 2015 season are conducive to improvement in Knoxville. Butch Jones doesn’t have to win the East this year, but he definitely needs to build on 2014. A backward step this fall will flush away all the good publicity Jones and his program have received the past few seasons.

The SEC East’s mystery man is about to start a campaign which will bring a lot more clarity to his coaching career.

About Matt Zemek

Editor, @TrojansWire | CFB writer since 2001 |

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