Big (Orange) goals: Fans want more wins; Jones focused on effort

Among the orange-clad crowd filling the main ballroom in The Chattanoogan hotel Wednesday night, a solitary voice lobbed the one question Tennessee football fans have been discussing all offseason.

"How many wins?" a fan asked Volunteers third-year coach Butch Jones toward the end of the annual Big Orange Caravan stop.

It's the primary question of every offseason, especially when Jones is expected to increase that total from last year's seven.

"We were doing really good with the questions," Jones joked, drawing a loud burst of laughter from the standing-room-only crowd.

"I've learned a long time ago, you have to focus on the present," he continued. "We have to work to be a better football team and a better football program. We still have a number of challenges, and that's what people don't understand. You could be a really good football team and you're a sprained ankle away from being an average football team.

"The thing we have to do is just focus each and every day, which our players have."

Jones proceeded to guarantee two things: Tennessee will have a true freshman at backup quarterback, and the Vols will apply the effort needed to take the next step as a program.

J.T. Trent, 7, right, and Chance Underwood, 10, get a close look at a full-size Tennessee Volunteer helmet Wednesday, May 13, 2015, while waiting in line to meet the University of Tennessee coaches at the Big Orange Caravan event.

"We're going to play hard," he added, "and we're going to represent you the right way, and we're going to win a lot of football games."

In 2014, Tennessee broke a string of four consecutive losing seasons with a 7-6 campaign that ended with a flourish. The Vols won four of their final five games and waxed Iowa for the program's first bowl victory in seven years. Then Jones and his coaches topped it off with another star-studded recruiting class.

The result has been a rise in expectations. The Vols are being hyped as contenders for the SEC East crown. This is a program with 10 SEC victories on its résumé over the past five years and losing streaks of 10 games to Florida, eight to Alabama and five to Georgia.

"We expect to contend each and every year, no matter if it's year one, year two, year three, or hopefully year 10, year 15," Jones told media prior to signing autographs for fans for more than an hour. "But we're still nowhere where we need to be in terms of the elite programs.

"It's still going to take a couple of years in the recruitment process in building our overall depth across the board, but our players have a standard and an expectation. There's a hunger, and that's why you come to the University of Tennessee. You expect to compete for championships year in and year out."

While their head coach is out on college football's equivalent of the campaign trail, Tennessee's players are enjoying a brief respite between the end of spring semester and the start of summer classes. While 15 players are taking mini-term classes, the rest are off campus. The team will reconvene in June to start summer workouts.

As he was waiting for first-year basketball coach Rick Barnes to finish charming the crowd, Jones said he received 15 text messages from players telling him they were working hard at home.

Hundreds of Tennessee Volunteer fans gather at The Chattanoogan hotel to meet coaches and get autographs as the Big Orange Caravan rolls into town Wednesday, May 13, 2015.

"Every football team is going to make sacrifices, but it's that inner drive," Jones said earlier. "It's everyone taking responsibility for their own self-development, and then them pushing each other. For us to reach the next phase of the development of our football team, this summer's going to be absolutely critical.

"We're going to have to play an inordinate amount of true freshmen, so the development in the months of June and July (is) going to be critical so when we come to camp we're ready to go."

It's those true freshmen, Jones believes, who are keeping Tennessee from joining the elite of college football. Impact freshmen are the envy of college coaches everywhere. You just don't want to have to depend on a handful of them being ready to make big impacts right away.

There are only so many players like Derek Barnett, Jalen Hurd or Jashon Robertson in each recruiting class.

"When everyone says, 'Well, why haven't you arrived yet?' I think the biggest snapshot of our football program is still a lot of true freshmen are in conversations of playing a big role on this year's football team, particularly on the defensive front," Jones said, referring to freshman defensive tackles Kahlil McKenzie and Shy Tuttle.

"As we know, that's a developmental position. I'd like to get to a point where we have some great established players up front where we're not counting on true freshmen to come in and play key roles immediately, that they can kind of emerge into those roles."

Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.

University of Tennessee basketball coach Rick Barnes, far left, greets Volunteer fan Samantha Lewelling as hundreds gather for the Big Orange Caravan at The Chattanoogan hotel on Wednesday, May 13, 2015.