Good hire with potential to be a great hire.

#1
D

dimera23

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#1
Coach Butch Jones is among the top young coaches on the rise. In my opinion, he and Larry Fedora were 1 and 1-a.

Jones is a proven winner who has an established reputation for getting more out of less talented players. Players absolutely love playing for him. He is an honorable man with an unchallenged reputation. He's a strong offensive mind. If we keep Coach Cheney as OC, we've got a really good chance to keep Bray, Hunter and Patterson and lead them to unimaginable heights.

Jones only glaring weakness is in recruiting. He's never had a top 40 class. Dave Hart will need to surround him with good recruiters. There's a good chance Jay Graham stays.

I really like this hire. I'm glad we made a go at Gruden, but deep down we knew he was headed to the Cowboys, Eagles or another NFL team. Mike Gundy wasn't going to leave his alma mater any more than Phil Fulmer would have ever left Tennessee. Strong was our first real candidate and he showed loyalty to the guy who gave him his first break. No shame there. We landed a coach on the rise to take us with him.
 
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#3
#3
Jones has been a winner everywhere he has coached, but my -only- question is "has he done well because Brian Kelly did well?" He followed Kelly his last two jobs, so this will be the first going out on his own, in a strange sort of way.
 
#4
#4
crazyguy said:
He's been following Brian Kelly around. This is not a good hire.
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I agree and that concerns me. Is most of his success created by following success and leaving before things fall apart?

UT has fallen apart. Doubt he can rebuild it.
 
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#6
#6
This could go one of two ways - 1) either he rode Kelly's coattails and isn't that good OR 2) he learned how to be a great coach from the guy who is currently playing for the National Championship...
 
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#7
#7
dimera23 said:
Based on what? People like you piss me off. You throw your opinion out there like you're the Pope but offer absolutely nothing to support it.
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He went to central michigan after kelly and then cincinatti after kelly. He is now in a league where he will have to out recruit all of the big boys in order to catch up. Do you honestly think he's going to out recruit when most of these kids will have no idea who he is, and the school he coach's for has been irrelevant for most of their lives?

Blind sheep piss me off.
 
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#8
#8
dimera23 said:
Coach Butch Jones is among the top young coaches on the rise. In my opinion, he and Larry Fedora were 1 and 1-a.

Jones is a proven winner who has an established reputation for getting more out of less talented players. Players absolutely love playing for him. He is an honorable man with an unchallenged reputation. He's a strong offensive mind. If we keep Coach Cheney as OC, we've got a really good chance to keep Bray, Hunter and Patterson and lead them to unimaginable heights.

Jones only glaring weakness is in recruiting. He's never had a top 40 class. Dave Hart will need to surround him with good recruiters. There's a good chance Jay Graham stays.

I really like this hire. I'm glad we made a go at Gruden, but deep down we knew he was headed to the Cowboys, Eagles or another NFL team. Mike Gundy wasn't going to leave his alma mater any more than Phil Fulmer would have ever left Tennessee. Strong was our first real candidate and he showed loyalty to the guy who gave him his first break. No shame there. We landed a coach on the rise to take us with him.
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Then it's a damn shame that's the most important part of the UT job. Given the lack of instate talent, being a good recruiter is more important than being a good coach at UT.
 
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#9
#9
Minibull said:
Jones has been a winner everywhere he has coached, but my -only- question is "has he done well because Brian Kelly did well?" He followed Kelly his last two jobs, so this will be the first going out on his own, in a strange sort of way.
Click to expand...

If he'd only been one year at Central Michigan and/or Cincinnati, I'd say that has weight. He wasn't. He spent several seasons at each school and won. If Coach Jones were just riding Kelleys coattails he would have had one year of success followed by failure. That didn't happen.
 
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#12
#12
bleedorange0037 said:
Then it's a damn shame that's the most important part of the UT job. Given the lack of instate talent, being a good recruiter is more important than being a good coach at UT.
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As I stated, Hart will need to surround him with good recruiters to get the kids in the door. Once here, Jones ability and integrity will keep them.
 
#13
#13
I'm sorry, 23-14 is not a "proven coach"

This was supposed to be the hire that got UT back to where we are supposed to be. Instead they made a meh hire.

Unreal.

Edit: was unaware of his overall record 50-27 I think.
 
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#14
#14
I think I started the first Butch Jones thread on here. I like him. But let's not kid ourselves. This is an awful hire. Does he have potential? Certainly. I think he could even win an SEC championship here one day. But, when Arkansas is going out there and getting Bret Bielema (young proven winner at the highest level) and all you can manage is Butch Jones, that's pretty sad.
 
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#16
#16
His recruiting class at Cincy is better than Charlie Strongs at UL. He'll be able to recruit just fine at UT, I believe.
 
#17
#17
dimera23 said:
As I stated, Hart will need to surround him with good recruiters to get the kids in the door. Once here, Jones ability and integrity will keep them.
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right, because Hart has proven that he can make a solid hire....
 
#18
#18
dimera23 said:
Based on what? People like you piss me off. You throw your opinion out there like you're the Pope but offer absolutely nothing to support it.
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Well to proof the posters point he took over for him at Centeral Michagan and Cincy and each time both squads were talented and he under acheived given the talent pool both times. Imo Brian Kelley was the hire we should have made 3 yrs ago. We will never be relevant again as long as we continue with these tier 2 hires.
 
#19
#19
Listen, I wish our new coach every success. We damn sure need him to succeed. But we needed Hart to make an exceptional hire, a Big Boy hire--to get a guy like Pelini or Patterson, who would have been an excellent hire, or somebody who would have made people---recruits, the league--take notice. And we didn't get it. I'm not saying it would have been easy--but that was the goal. Strong has nice credentials, but I had my worries about him; felt he was 6.5 on 1-10 scale when we needed a 7.5. Jones is a bit under that. I'm sure he's got qualities--so does Dooley--but this is a BIG BOY conference is ever there was one; the SEC is stronger now than I can ever remember it. And we needed a big boy coach. As they say, we shall see. He'd better find and hire at least three big-time recruiters, that is for sure, or we'll be doing this again before long.
 
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#20
#20
Not sure why everyone is so down on his recruiting. "he never had a top 40 class" look who he recruited for. Recruiting for Tennessee and for Cincinnati are two totally different things. I guarantee he pulls top 40 classes while here.
 
#23
#23
Jayadamo said:
Not sure why everyone is so down on his recruiting. "he never had a top 40 class" look who he recruited for. Recruiting for Tennessee and for Cincinnati are two totally different things. I guarantee he pulls top 40 classes while here.
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he needs top 5 classes here. That's the problem.
 
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#25
#25
crazyguy said:
he needs top 5 classes here. That's the problem.
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Unfortunately Tennessee is not a top 5 destination these days. We have talent. If he can come in and start winning games the recruits will come. We have to be patient. People want to beat Florida, Bama, and Oregon (me included) when we really need to just hope he can take down Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Missouri in his first season.
 
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