Personally, I love the fact that he said, "When we go to a bowl game this year . . . we will have 14 college graduates on this year's team performing. That will be the most in the country." First and foremost, it signifies the completion of what should be every student-athlete's most fundamental goal, the acquisition of a college degree.
From the standpoint of accelerating program development, however, it signifies ongoing success in what I consider to be one of the unspoken cornerstones of Butch's overall strategy. As we are all aware, Butch and his staff signed 14 early enrollees in the 2014 recruiting class, which I believe is the most in program history. However, in perusing Lindys Southeastern 2014 Preview, I discovered, to my surprise, the following statement: UT had a nations leading 14 players enroll at mid term, the third time in four years that Butch Jones has had the most mid-termers in the country (p. 174). That quite simply does not happen by random chance. I regret that I cant provide a citation, but Butch stated previously that one of his goals is for his players to graduate in 3 to 3 ½ years. It is my opinion that Butch wants to do everything in his power to coordinate the graduation of as many players as possible in December, both on the high school level and from our football team, thus maximizing the number of spots available for early enrollees. If he can bring in 12-15 early enrollees every year, that is a tremendous advantage in terms of accelerating player development, both in the strength and conditioning program, spring practice, enhanced preparation for their freshman season, and academic acclimation to college-level work.
