Coach Jones has good record after bye weeks

[VolFan4Life87]

He gets a bye last year. Got us an upset. This year and next year will be how he is judged. IMO he is right on track.

"Year zero" you say?

 

[oregonvol]

Actually, all things are his job.

Props to KBVol for waltzing over to the "accountability" side. I've been enjoying your recent posts.

 

[oregonvol]

The author does not appear to precisely define his criteria; it says only that "Below is a complete list of each FBS coach and his record when he has had extra time to prepare for a game." That could include an additional day of preparation, a true bye week or time elapsed prior to a bowl game. Rifleman provided this data (http://www.volnation.com/forum/tennessee-vols-football/205574-butch-jones-record-10-days-off.html) on 10/16/2013, which was prior to the post-bye week games against South Carolina and Vanderbilt:

"Butch Jones record with 10+ days off: 11-4 Updated numbers to reflect USC win.

Folks. This is going to be a great game this weekend, but I have no doubt our guys will be ready.

Why? With 10+ days rest:

* Coach Jones' teams are 11-4, including bowl games.

* They have won 10 of the last 12.

* They have won 8 of the last 9.

* The last five victims are Va Tech, Vandy, Pitt, Louisville and South Carolina.

* The last loss came at West Virginia in 2010, a team that finished #22 in the BCS rankings.

* The loss at West Virginia is Butch's only loss with the full bye week, 14 days rest before a non-bowl game. Interestingly, WVU had 15 days rest before this one, having played on a Friday before a bye week.

* 3 of the 4 losses were by 3 points."

Unfortunately, Rifleman does not cite his source for this data; it may well reflect his own independent research. However, defined in this fashion, Butch's record with additional time to prepare is even more impressive.

Incidentally, am I correct to assume that, within this context, ATS means "against the spread"? If so, that isn't necessarily a true win-loss record but a record of how frequently they beat the spread in games played with additional preparation time.

Clearly the information posted above is out of date. As previously noted, Butch's last loss after a bye week was at home, to Vanderbilt, in a game he was favored to win, after a full bye week.

 

[KBVol]

By the Vandy game, he didn't have any QBs to play the game.

Vandy didn't have any DBs to play the game.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

Vandy didn't have any DBs to play the game.

They didn't need any.

 

[Rifleman]

My post referenced above was my research last updated before the Vandy game. I believe I only included non-openers with 10 or more days of prep. These are games where both teams have film on the current opponent's roster, which is a key difference from the opener.

To sum up, with 10+ days rest:

* Butch Jones is 11-5 as a head coach

* is 10-6 against the spread

* Has lost 3 times as the favorite: in 2007, 2008 and 2013

* Has won 4 times as the underdog: 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013

A lot of smart people look at bye week data like this in order to rate head coach quality. What the data says to me is that Butch is an above average coach, but not a great one. But it also seems to indicate that he is improving with a bye week upset in each of the last 3 seasons.

If he gets a bye week upset this year it will have to be at Georgia. I fully expect this to be just as close as it was last year in Neyland, coming down to a play or two at the end.

 

[FiremedicVOL127]

I don't blame his gameplan. He had the team in position to win.

He can't force Pig to not block in the back, or the Oline to get a push for one yard, or the defense to stop Vandy from converting on 4th down.

Vandy didn't convert the 4th.....the refs did!!

 

[DERELICK_MY_VOLS]

I don't blame his gameplan. He had the team in position to win.

He can't force Pig to not block in the back, or the Oline to get a push for one yard, or the defense to stop Vandy from converting on 4th down.

At some point the players have to take it upon themselves. That is the difference between last seasons team and this one so far this season.

 

[Volosaurus rex]

Clearly the information posted above is out of date. As previously noted, Butch's last loss after a bye week was at home, to Vanderbilt, in a game he was favored to win, after a full bye week.

Clearly you failed to read my introductory remarks in which I stated that the data presented by Rifleman were posted prior to the Vanderbilt game. Why do you insist on being so incessantly negative?

 

[daj2576]

My post referenced above was my research last updated before the Vandy game. I believe I only included non-openers with 10 or more days of prep. These are games where both teams have film on the current opponent's roster, which is a key difference from the opener.

To sum up, with 10+ days rest:

* Butch Jones is 11-5 as a head coach

* is 10-6 against the spread

* Has lost 3 times as the favorite: in 2007, 2008 and 2013

* Has won 4 times as the underdog: 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013

A lot of smart people look at bye week data like this in order to rate head coach quality. What the data says to me is that Butch is an above average coach, but not a great one. But it also seems to indicate that he is improving with a bye week upset in each of the last 3 seasons.

If he gets a bye week upset this year it will have to be at Georgia. I fully expect this to be just as close as it was last year in Neyland, coming down to a play or two at the end.

Interesting point to be made here. Who in the SEC would you say is an elite coach? The data in that PDF shows that Butch is better ATS with time to prepare than coaches who many people feel are elite.

To be very clear, I am not disagreeing with you at all. In fact, as per usual, I tend to agree with most of what you are saying.

 

[Crazy Ivan]

If he can't beat Vanderbilt straight up in a game where he started 13 4 star recruits, then he really doesn't deserve all the myriad of excuses you folks make for him.

Franklin's 3 recruiting classes were roughly the same as Dooley's 3 classes, and those were the kids mainly playing in that game last season, so there was not the disparity between the 2 teams that some of you want to believe. Butch is changing that, but it was not the case last season. Throw in an 18-year old QB with no decent targets other than Pig after North went out, and it's not a shock.

Butch will curbstomp Vandy's ass this season and won't need the players to help him do it.

 

[General Jack]

If he can't beat Vanderbilt straight up in a game where he started 13 4 star recruits, then he really doesn't deserve all the myriad of excuses you folks make for him.

Your bias is clear. Any objective analysis would recognize that we had very little talent to roll out by the Vandy game last year - regardless of stars.

Vandy was a significantly better team at that point and we lost by 4 with a chance to win.

 

[General Jack]

Franklin's 3 recruiting classes were roughly the same as Dooley's 3 classes, and those were the kids mainly playing in that game last season, so there was not the disparity between the 2 teams that some of you want to believe. Butch is changing that, but it was not the case last season. Throw in an 18-year old QB with no decent targets other than Pig after North went out, and it's not a shock.

Butch will curbstomp Vandy's ass this season and won't need the players to help him do it.

Franklins kids had been in the system for a few years, CBJs had not. Continuity matters.

 

[Rifleman]

Interesting point to be made here. Who in the SEC would you say is an elite coach? The data in that PDF shows that Butch is better ATS with time to prepare than coaches who many people feel are elite.

To be very clear, I am not disagreeing with you at all. In fact, as per usual, I tend to agree with most of what you are saying.

My honest belief is that while there are several great recruiters, there is no elite game coach right now in the SEC. When I think of elite coaches I think of brilliant game plans--guys who solve problems no one else has come close to solving. See Bill Snyder holding Auburn to a 2.8 ypc average last night. Crazy!

Young Spurrier was the best I've seen in my lifetime at coming up with a genius gameplan. The 1992 SEC Championship--even though Florida lost to probably the best defense this side of General Neyland's in '39--was unbelievable. They should have been blown out, but he figured out how to use Bama's strengths against them and they nearly won. Maybe Spurrier can still do that from time to time, but as we saw him get outcoached last year in Neyland, it becomes clear he does not have to fire to stay at that level of excellence.

Having said that, the best formula these days is likely to have a great recruiter and motivator at HC along with very strong coordinators and position coaches who share his philosophy. I definitely think by that matrix this staff can and will be elite in the terms of wins and losses.

I also think that Coach Jones is flexible enough to grow with the game, spot important new trends and always stay ahead of the learning curve on both sides of the ball without being compelled to chase the latest gimmickry. We've seen a lot of dominant coaches who could not do that and were eventually swallowed up. Even General Neyland stayed with an outmoded offensive scheme too long.

 

[oregonvol]

Clearly you failed to read my introductory remarks in which I stated that the data presented by Rifleman were posted prior to the Vanderbilt game. Why do you insist on being so incessantly negative?

Yeah, my fault. I missed that part of your first paragraph. My apologies.

Is it "incessantly negative" to reject all the excuses for losing at home to Vanderbilt? If so, I am guilty as charged. To my mind, those who continue to suggest that losing to Vanderbilt is excusable, understandable, perhaps even unavoidable, and Vol fans should be happy with it are the ones who take an utterly negative view of the program.

 

[oregonvol]

Franklin's 3 recruiting classes were roughly the same as Dooley's 3 classes

No they weren't. (According to rivals, 2011: UT #13, Vandy #71, 2012: UT #17, Vandy #29, 2013: Vandy #19, UT #21...the only time they were within 10 spots of one another was 2013, and those players would have been freshmen. 2012's players were sophomores. The bulk of the players came from classes very far apart).

and those were the kids mainly playing in that game last season, so there was not the disparity between the 2 teams that some of you want to believe.

How many 4 star recruits did Franklin start in the game? Surely it should be around the same as we did (13) if, as you maintain, the recruiting classes were similar.

Butch is changing that, but it was not the case last season. Throw in an 18-year old QB with no decent targets other than Pig after North went out,

Is your argument really that we can only expect our coach to beat teams with inferior talent when the team is injury free? Because that is never going to happen. We had injuries. Vanderbilt had injuries. It's part of the game.

and it's not a shock.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Losing to Vanderbilt is a perfectly acceptable outcome to you, and yet I'm the negative one. Makes sense.

Butch will curbstomp Vandy's ass this season and won't need the players to help him do it.

I don't even know what this means. He "won't need the players"? Huh? You just argued that he couldn't be held at fault for last year because he didn't have the players. But now he doesn't "need the players"? Really? Why is that? Have all of Vanderbilt's players (who, according to you were just as highly recruited as UT's players) changed? Or, rather, is it because they don't have the better coach anymore? Hmmm...maybe coaching is a major factor after all.

 

[DD4ME]

My honest belief is that while there are several great recruiters, there is no elite game coach right now in the SEC. When I think of elite coaches I think of brilliant game plans--guys who solve problems no one else has come close to solving. See Bill Snyder holding Auburn to a 2.8 ypc average last night. Crazy!

Young Spurrier was the best I've seen in my lifetime at coming up with a genius gameplan. The 1992 SEC Championship--even though Florida lost to probably the best defense this side of General Neyland's in '39--was unbelievable. They should have been blown out, but he figured out how to use Bama's strengths against them and they nearly won. Maybe Spurrier can still do that from time to time, but as we saw him get outcoached last year in Neyland, it becomes clear he does not have to fire to stay at that level of excellence.

Having said that, the best formula these days is likely to have a great recruiter and motivator at HC along with very strong coordinators and position coaches who share his philosophy. I definitely think by that matrix this staff can and will be elite in the terms of wins and losses.

I also think that Coach Jones is flexible enough to grow with the game, spot important new trends and always stay ahead of the learning curve on both sides of the ball without being compelled to chase the latest gimmickry. We've seen a lot of dominant coaches who could not do that and were eventually swallowed up. Even General Neyland stayed with an outmoded offensive scheme too long.

Very well put I would agree completely. I think if Butch does have a weakness it is that he seems not to adjust on the fly or for particular scenarios. He seems to take the more common dominance through consistency plan. That takes a while to get geared up.

 

[Rooster1]

SIAP

I couldn't see it because I don't have a VIP account, but 247 Sports did an article on Butch always being tough after Bye weeks. Anyone with a membership care to tell us what the article says and if it tells us his record after byes?

He has beaten no ranked teams on the road in his career as a HC and only one on his home field. The bye week question relies upon several factors, but the only one that is important is how he has done versus good/ranked teams after a bye week. In his career, he has one of those feathers in his cap, so the jury is still out there on that question. I like the guy, think he is right for UT, just cannot anoint him yet as the savior based upon his body of work as a HC, he is sterling as a recruiter though, and that is worth gold in the SEC if he can coach on game days. He may get it done for UT fans, but what does that mean? There are now 5 teams in the East (UT, UGA, UF, SC, Mizz) and four from the West (Bama, LSU, aTm, Aub) that can all match his recruits. He needs to show his coaching ability to rise to the levels some expect of him.

 

[Volosaurus rex]

My honest belief is that while there are several great recruiters, there is no elite game coach right now in the SEC. When I think of elite coaches I think of brilliant game plans--guys who solve problems no one else has come close to solving. See Bill Snyder holding Auburn to a 2.8 ypc average last night. Crazy!

Young Spurrier was the best I've seen in my lifetime at coming up with a genius gameplan. The 1992 SEC Championship--even though Florida lost to probably the best defense this side of General Neyland's in '39--was unbelievable. They should have been blown out, but he figured out how to use Bama's strengths against them and they nearly won. Maybe Spurrier can still do that from time to time, but as we saw him get outcoached last year in Neyland, it becomes clear he does not have to fire to stay at that level of excellence.

Having said that, the best formula these days is likely to have a great recruiter and motivator at HC along with very strong coordinators and position coaches who share his philosophy. I definitely think by that matrix this staff can and will be elite in the terms of wins and losses.

I also think that Coach Jones is flexible enough to grow with the game, spot important new trends and always stay ahead of the learning curve on both sides of the ball without being compelled to chase the latest gimmickry. We've seen a lot of dominant coaches who could not do that and were eventually swallowed up. Even General Neyland stayed with an outmoded offensive scheme too long.

I agree on every point except your last sentence. Clearly our program stayed with the single wing long after everyone else in the country had abandoned it and we paid the consequences by losing homegrown passing quarterbacks such as Steve Spurrier and Steve Sloan because of it. However, given the fact that the General won a national championship in his next to last season and, in his last season, we still finished 8th in both polls, I don't believe that he can justifiably be accused of staying with it too long. According to Ben Byrd, long-term columnist for the Knoxville Journal, Neyland stated that “Everybody thought that I was absolutely married to the single-wing offense and crazy about it and just wouldn’t change because I was too stubborn. Frankly, I didn’t give a **** about any kind of offense. The only reason I went to the single-wing, with a balanced line, was that it gave me a little quicker power between tackle and end. . . . I never worried about offense at all. I would have gone to the T if I felt that it offered me anything that I didn’t already have” (fast-forward to the 8:40 mark of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBWJgoBZTeM).

Speaking of Kansas State’s defense of Auburn’s running attack, do you or any of our more schematically oriented observers have an explanation for what Snyder specifically did to throttle Malzahn’s offense so effectively? I only saw bits and pieces of that game.

 

[vol_sec]

Vandy beat UF, UT, and UGA last year. My guess is that it will be a very long time before that happens again.

 

[Boca Vol]

Franklin's 3 recruiting classes were roughly the same as Dooley's 3 classes, and those were the kids mainly playing in that game last season, so there was not the disparity between the 2 teams that some of you want to believe. Butch is changing that, but it was not the case last season. Throw in an 18-year old QB with no decent targets other than Pig after North went out, and it's not a shock.

Butch will curbstomp Vandy's ass this season and won't need the players to help him do it.

I would hope so as Temple curbstomped Vandy this season.

 

[Rifleman]

I agree on every point except your last sentence. Clearly our program stayed with the single wing long after everyone else in the country had abandoned it and we paid the consequences by losing homegrown passing quarterbacks such as Steve Spurrier and Steve Sloan because of it. However, given the fact that the General won a national championship in his next to last season and, in his last season, we still finished 8th in both polls, I don't believe that he can justifiably be accused of staying with it too long. According to Ben Byrd, long-term columnist for the Knoxville Journal, Neyland stated that “Everybody thought that I was absolutely married to the single-wing offense and crazy about it and just wouldn’t change because I was too stubborn. Frankly, I didn’t give a **** about any kind of offense. The only reason I went to the single-wing, with a balanced line, was that it gave me a little quicker power between tackle and end. . . . I never worried about offense at all. I would have gone to the T if I felt that it offered me anything that I didn’t already have” (fast-forward to the 8:40 mark of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBWJgoBZTeM).

Speaking of Kansas State’s defense of Auburn’s running attack, do you or any of our more schematically oriented observers have an explanation for what Snyder specifically did to throttle Malzahn’s offense so effectively? I only saw bits and pieces of that game.

Yeah, I love those quotes. I remember hearing a guy interviewed on the radio a while back who played offense for Neyland and wanted to be on that side of the ball from the start. The defense wasn't quite where it needed to be for the General, so every time someone on the offensive side would show out in practice they'd get switched to defense.

It got to the point that practice was pure hell for this guy because all the best players were on the defensive side of the ball and he wanted to ask to switch sides too but he was afraid too afraid of Neyland to do it. But he did say the games were so easy compared to practice that it almost like playtime.

 

[VolFootballlover]

No reason vandy should ever beat the Vols. I don't care what anyone says. If Candy wins this year Butch should be hung upside down from his toe nails.

 

[tenninohio]

hey Butch still liking those Big East plays you run; but, come on.....yes, they are freshmen, but the quote in today's Tennessean.....17 and 18 year olds????
now how many of those, long ago identified talent, were probably held back somewhere in their "education", and are older than the typical college freshmen.
call them freshmen, but don't call them 17, 18 year old boys. That quote is getting old.

 

[KingtUT]

hey Butch still liking those Big East plays you run; but, come on.....yes, they are freshmen, but the quote in today's Tennessean.....17 and 18 year olds????
now how many of those, long ago identified talent, were probably held back somewhere in their "education", and are older than the typical college freshmen.
call them freshmen, but don't call them 17, 18 year old boys. That quote is getting old.

Sometimes the truth is simply the truth. Deal with it.