Butch JonesButch Jones stepped before the Big Orange masses Friday, the new University of Tennessee football coach, carrying a history of success into a centrifuge of frustration among one of the country’s most passionate fan bases.
It’s been a tough 20 days for Volunteers fans everywhere — heck, it’s been a rough 20 months — and the last week was so tumultuous it could have been measured on the Richter Scale. Coaches from smaller schools in lesser leagues had passed on the chance to revive a Big Orange program that has endured three consecutive losing seasons and four in the last five.
Enter Jones, who has a 50-27 career record and four conference titles in his six combined seasons at Central Michigan and Cincinnati. And the reception ranged from anger to malaise to a somewhat dejected optimism about the announcement.
Maybe it was the 7:30 a.m. news that Tennessee had made the hire. Maybe it was the sudden and somewhat flat end to the craziness that bounced from rock star coaches to obvious attempts at power plays to everything in between. Maybe it’s from a lack of familiarity of Jones’ work — the guy has won at every stop and has an impressive list of football folks singing his praises. Maybe it’s from an expectation of something more — remember, UT athletic director Dave Hart promised a home run and they moved a ton of cash around for this hire — or maybe it’s just the universal and absolute uncertainty of whether this guy or any guy can compete with the hired guns and home-run hitters who roam across the SEC.
The initial angst will fade, of course. Remember that the initial reaction to Lane Kiffin was excitement; the reaction to Derek Dooley was a quiet confidence. And we all remember how those stories ended.