"Number one, we've got to win more."
"So we've got to win more. I don't run away from that."
"Our people want to win. We want to win."
Those were new University of Tennessee athletic director John Currie's words on three separate occasions over the final three minutes and six seconds of a 12-minute, 28-second interview the Times Free Press conducted with him Saturday.
Especially if you're a fan of Tennessee football, you can easily read into those statements that fifth-year coach Butch Jones better win and win big this upcoming season, or he'll likely not see a sixth season coaching the home team in Neyland Stadium.
On the other hand, Currie also said this during the interview: "We've got to do this (winning) in the context of what we're really about - the student-athlete. That's representing the University of Tennessee the right way."
He also said: "Our football program has the best APR (Academic Progress Rate) in the history of the program."
And this: "We're coming off three consecutive winning (football) seasons. The last time that happened was 2002 through 2004. We're doing the right things."
To add to that, those three straight winning seasons have produced three straight bowl wins by an average of 23 points. Say what you will if you're against Jones, but he has clearly had notable successes both on the field and off.
Because of that, a wise man charged with deciding a football coach's future keeps his thoughts to himself as long as possible. Whatever Currie thinks of Jones - or women's basketball coach Holly Warlick - he isn't giving even the slightest hint of those thoughts at this moment.
Contrast that approach with the one taken by Texas A&M athletic director Scott Woodward, who may have sent Aggies football coach Kevin Sumlin's blood pressures skyrocketing three months before the season begins.
"We've had a heck of a spring, and recruiting continues to go well," Woodward told the SEC Network this past week, "but Coach (Sumlin) knows he has to win, and he has to win this year and we have to do better than we've done in the past."
The guess here is that, if such a thing is possible, Sumlin's on a hotter seat than Jones where the average fan is concerned. Woodward - though he's only in his second season running the Texas A&M athletic program - may be as concerned about his own popularity with Aggies Nation as he is with the overall health of his football program. And that's his right.
But Currie isn't yet traveling that path. He's quietly observing. Taking notes. Listening rather than talking.
That path is smart on at least two fronts. One, he needs to know the feeling out there among the masses. Second, the more people who believe that their insight is important to him, the more supporters he'll have going forward.
Also, unless Jones goes 5-7 or worse and gets drilled by Alabama, Florida and Georgia, Coach Cliché's future is a difficult decision.
The program is clearly better than he found it. And no coach in the country - not even Bama boss Nick Saban - could have been expected to reach a top-tier bowl with the injuries the Volunteers suffered last season. Plus, off the field and in the classroom, Butch's bunch has clearly performed so much better than any Tennessee coaching regime in recent memory. That may not count for much behind closed doors, but it should.
That said, with his notable strengths regarding the business of college athletics, Currie also knows neither he nor the program can survive having Neyland Stadium with a third of its seats empty or big-time boosters withholding pledges because of the direction of the football program.
Especially not when there are already detailed plans to soon begin a $106 million renovation at Neyland.
So Currie offered a little bit for everyone during the program's Big Orange Caravan stop Saturday in Chattanooga. He let the Big Orange Nation know he cares about winning. He also let it know he doesn't care about winning only, that the method matters.
But he did return to the importance of winning more often than not.
"That's important to the people of Tennessee," he said. "That's important to Tennessee Volunteers. It better be important to our student-athletes and coaches, and I believe it is."
It's obviously important enough to Currie that he touched on it three times in three minutes and six seconds on Saturday. Make of that what you will regarding Jones, Warlick or any other athletic department employee, but as recently ousted Vols baseball coach Dave Serrano found out at the close of his sixth season in K-town, winning too little while doing the right things off the field won't keep Currie from finding someone else he believes can win more than you did.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.