KNOXVILLE -- Butch Jones wanted to keep the train on the track.
So Tennessee's football coach went out and hired somebody who helped design it during the earliest stages.
Whoever Jones was going to tab as Mike Bajakian's replacement as Tennessee's offensive coordinator was going to run the same offense he's used in his eight seasons as a head coach at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Tennessee.
Thus hiring Mike Debord made sense, even if the 59-year-old hadn't been a college coordinator since 2007 and spent the last two years out of coaching altogether.
"Having worked for Mike, having worked with Mike was paramount for me," Jones said Friday during a news conference introducing DeBord, who was hired late last week. "I understand what he's all about. A lot of the things we do at Tennessee stem from Mike DeBord.
"A lot of people don't realize this, but our formational system, the way we call things, was designed with Mike DeBord and our staff at another institution."
That institution was Central Michigan, where DeBord was the head coach and Jones his offensive coordinator for four years (2000-03). The Chippewas were only 12-34 in that span, but Jones and DeBord have been successful at other stops. Jones is 62-40 as a head coach, and Michigan won 52 games in DeBord's five seasons as its offensive coordinator.
Though DeBord's offenses at Michigan were more pro-style and traditional than the spread Tennessee runs, there are similarities to what the Vols are running now and what Jones and DeBord did together at CMU.
"We were a tempo team. We put that in," DeBord explained. "Why we did that is we looked for advantages to win, and that was one of the advantages we felt like we needed to be a winning football team. We started with that, and we ran the zone schemes there. Obviously the spread here is zone, so those things didn't change so much.
"What really will change from our offense here compared to Central Michigan is we're going to be a one-back spread offense. We were multiple (at CMU). We used one-back and two-back (formations), so we were very multiple that way.
"We're going to take everything that we've done here, that they've had success with, like Butch said, and we're going to continue to move on with that. Then there's going to be little wrinkles that we add from my NFL experience that we'll add to the throw game and maybe a run here or there."
The hiring of DeBord was met with initial consternation from Tennessee fans, but Jones is confident about putting his offense in the hands of his former boss as the Vols enter a season with mounting hype and expectations.
Tennessee returns 10 starters on offense, including quarterback Josh Dobbs, and Jones was not looking to shake things up after losing Bajakian, the only offensive coordinator he's had as a head coach, to an NFL job.
"Our offense does not need to be rebuilt. It needs to be enhanced," he said. "A lot of people don't understand it takes continuity and consistency to win. For us, being in year three of our football program, to bring in an entire new offensive system ... that's extremely, extremely challenging, and I didn't want to go down that path."
DeBord has hit the ground running by reviewing video of the offense and breaking it down to the minute details.
He maintained he was "very hands-on" with quarterbacks during his days as Michigan's coordinator, and he plans to take that approach with the Vols.
Part of his interview, in fact, included a meeting with Dobbs.
"I think he's a great person," DeBord said. "I've watched a lot of film on him, and when I came in to interview -- I think this was smart on Butch's part -- but I actually was able to sit down with him and talk to him. I found out right away how much passion he has for football."
DeBord said he's already noticed some strides Dobbs has made on some smaller details the two have discussed.
"I could not believe, just in our skill development period on Wednesday, how much he's improved, with his stance, with his drop, with his footwork -- all those things," DeBord said.
"We don't have a ball out there, so we can't throw a ball, but we're holding a cone and going through the drops and all that stuff. Just the improvement he's made shows me his passion for football and wanting to be a great player. I'm really excited about working with him."
DeBord may be adjusting to new players and a new situation, but parts of the offense he's diving into are hardly new.
"It's like riding a bike," he said. "You get back on it and start pedaling. Right now I'm pedaling pretty fast."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.