University of Tennessee head coach Butch Jones blows his whistle during pre-game warmups at Neyland Stadium Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn.KNOXVILLE – You don’t need to reach the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee to know you can’t correctly spell “Butch” without a U and a T.
After the debut first-year Tennessee football coach Butch Jones had against Austin Peay on Saturday night inside Neyland Stadium, no Big Orange football fan ever again may want to spell his head coach’s first name any other way.
Talk about your perfect first impression. The Volunteers didn’t just vaporize their in-state cousin Austin Peay, smacking the Governors around by a 45-0 final score, impressive as that was. UT led 42-zip at halftime without incurring a single penalty on the final, sticky night of August.
We repeat, ZERO penalties. For the first half. And the second half. Sixty minutes of flag-less football in a season opener that was pretty much decided before the game began.
“The big thing I wanted was a clean game,” Jones said after the Vols’ 800th all-time win. “Didn’t want to have to call a timeout because we had 10 men on the field.”