I will admit I was all in.... I was drinking the Kool Aid.
When he first got here I was all in on how much more disciplined we were and how much tougher we played than we did with Dooley. This was especially true in 2013 and 2014. In 13 when we whipped that Top 10 loaded South Carolina team at home with much less talent I was sure it was a sign of things to come. We took a Top 5 UGA team to overtime in a game we win if Pig holds onto the football. Of course those games had me over look the disaster that was the Vandy game when we completely laid an egg keeping us from a bowl game. My excuse was the horrendous replay call that went against us on the QB sneak where you couldn't see a thing and the officials just assumed the ball was somewhere. Reality was it should have never come that.
In 2014 I was blinded by "progress" even in the midst of blowing the Florida game and it requiring a miracle comeback to beat SC to get bowl eligible. I let a win over a bad Iowa team fool me. I was so excited to be back in a bowl that a Gator Bowl blow out had me saying "This is tangible progress". Part of this was recruiting was hot again for the first time since Kiffin. Top 5 class with multiple 5 stars and the instate players wanted to come to UT again AND the state was producing talent for the first time in a long time. Seemed like the perfect storm.
2015- I viewed our collpases against Oklahoma and Florida as "We were the better team and had more talent. That goes to show that we are close and it won't happen again." We took Bama to the wire and quite frankly should have won that game. Again I said progress. That 2015 team should have been a playoff/SEC championship type team. Beating a bad Northwestern team that was ranked #12 had me all in on 2016. Another Top 5 recruiting class with 4 5 stars and a high profile off season hire of Bob Shoop had me even more all in.
2016- I let miracle wins against UF and UGA fool me. App State game "Oh we just came out tight". Texas A&M "Oh that's on the players for fumbling 8 times". Bama blow out "Oh we were beat up". Losing to Vandy to miss out on the SEC Championship was when I finally started to say "Maybe this guy can't do it". I didn't allow the Nebraska game to do anything for me with their 3rd string QB. I started to realize that Shoop was a fraud but we still had a lot of injuries and I said maybe in 17...
2017- the freaking bottom fell out. That GT game was an absolute embarrassment and showed where our program was now at from a toughness and culture perspective "BUT we won, right?!" We found and way and showed that resiliency that Butch loved to talk about. For me he had one more game before I finally was done.
The Florida game was it. We had no business losing and we did. An excuse still tried to pop in "If John Kelly catches the football we would have won".
That sums up the Butch era to me. Excuses. There was always an excuse (injuries, freak play, players freaking out and not executing an elementary play that cost us the game etc). He had me fooled for 4 years. To everyone who was done with him in 2015, job well done. I hung around much longer
It is shocking, yet at the same time not surprising, to see how quickly the bottom fell out. We went from an SEC Championship/playoff caliber team (with even average coaching) in 2015 and 2016 to the worst team in Tennessee football history in 1 season.
I know this is too long but since Pruitt has been hired I just turned over a new page and hadn't really thought about Butch.
The Butch Jones Era- a fraud and full of excuses.
When he first got here I was all in on how much more disciplined we were and how much tougher we played than we did with Dooley. This was especially true in 2013 and 2014. In 13 when we whipped that Top 10 loaded South Carolina team at home with much less talent I was sure it was a sign of things to come. We took a Top 5 UGA team to overtime in a game we win if Pig holds onto the football. Of course those games had me over look the disaster that was the Vandy game when we completely laid an egg keeping us from a bowl game. My excuse was the horrendous replay call that went against us on the QB sneak where you couldn't see a thing and the officials just assumed the ball was somewhere. Reality was it should have never come that.
In 2014 I was blinded by "progress" even in the midst of blowing the Florida game and it requiring a miracle comeback to beat SC to get bowl eligible. I let a win over a bad Iowa team fool me. I was so excited to be back in a bowl that a Gator Bowl blow out had me saying "This is tangible progress". Part of this was recruiting was hot again for the first time since Kiffin. Top 5 class with multiple 5 stars and the instate players wanted to come to UT again AND the state was producing talent for the first time in a long time. Seemed like the perfect storm.
2015- I viewed our collpases against Oklahoma and Florida as "We were the better team and had more talent. That goes to show that we are close and it won't happen again." We took Bama to the wire and quite frankly should have won that game. Again I said progress. That 2015 team should have been a playoff/SEC championship type team. Beating a bad Northwestern team that was ranked #12 had me all in on 2016. Another Top 5 recruiting class with 4 5 stars and a high profile off season hire of Bob Shoop had me even more all in.
2016- I let miracle wins against UF and UGA fool me. App State game "Oh we just came out tight". Texas A&M "Oh that's on the players for fumbling 8 times". Bama blow out "Oh we were beat up". Losing to Vandy to miss out on the SEC Championship was when I finally started to say "Maybe this guy can't do it". I didn't allow the Nebraska game to do anything for me with their 3rd string QB. I started to realize that Shoop was a fraud but we still had a lot of injuries and I said maybe in 17...
2017- the freaking bottom fell out. That GT game was an absolute embarrassment and showed where our program was now at from a toughness and culture perspective "BUT we won, right?!" We found and way and showed that resiliency that Butch loved to talk about. For me he had one more game before I finally was done.
The Florida game was it. We had no business losing and we did. An excuse still tried to pop in "If John Kelly catches the football we would have won".
That sums up the Butch era to me. Excuses. There was always an excuse (injuries, freak play, players freaking out and not executing an elementary play that cost us the game etc). He had me fooled for 4 years. To everyone who was done with him in 2015, job well done. I hung around much longer
It is shocking, yet at the same time not surprising, to see how quickly the bottom fell out. We went from an SEC Championship/playoff caliber team (with even average coaching) in 2015 and 2016 to the worst team in Tennessee football history in 1 season.
I know this is too long but since Pruitt has been hired I just turned over a new page and hadn't really thought about Butch.
The Butch Jones Era- a fraud and full of excuses.
