The Vols practice bubble is a better facility than Nippert Stadium at Cincinnati, where Jones teams won a share of the Big East title the last two years. Tennessees weight room and new football operations building is bigger and better than anything they could fathom at Central Michigan, where Jones won two MAC championshipsand where the current coach has won 12 games in three seasons since.
Yet when Jones was introduced, he was peppered with these insightful questions:
Will your system work in the SEC? Can you recruit in the SEC? Are you concerned you werent the first choice? How fast can you win?
Everyone wants everything at once. And no one wants to work to get it.
Jones met with Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart at 10 p.m. on the night before he was officially hired. He had just backed away from a mentally taxing few days of discussions and deliberations with Colorado, and eventually a decision by he and his wife Barbara to say no.
Jones and Hart stayed up through the night to talk about the plan, the specifics, and the goal of bringing a once dominant Tennessee program back to life. They finally agreed to part at 6 a.m., a full eight hours after Jones first began to explain why his system has been successful everywhere he has coached.
Its about players: recruiting and developing and mentoring. Six years as a head coach, four conference championships.
