Tag: Butch Jones

NIL isn’t ruining college football: It’s the analysts

There are a lot of people who hate NIL. They hate the thought of players ‘getting theirs’. They hate the thought that players aren’t going to college just for the education, but actually as a stepping stone into the NFL. “The players should stay loyal to us!”, they say, adding: “They should also play in the bowl games, too!”. For me, NIL isn’t ruining college football. The bigger schools ALWAYS had boosters who would do this kind of stuff. And boosters who want to be more associated with a bunch of 18-21 year olds because it looks good for them to say: “I give money to Alabama”, and perhaps they can now declare the NIL money as a tax write-off,

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Tennessee Preview 2018: Will the Vols get off the mat?

2017 was an awful, awful year for the Tennessee Volunteers. Butch Jones was such an unpopular coach that signs saying “Fire Butch Jones” went viral. At games not involving Jones or Tennessee. When he was fired after the team lost to Kentucky, there was an audible sense of relief. You know, for two seconds until the Knoxville roadshow went on overdrive as they tried to find a successor (remember the Greg Schiano incident?) – with former Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt eventually coming through the mire to claim the top job. This year, there is every possibility that the Vols will be the basement-dwellers of their division. They aren’t a whole lot better than the terrible 4-8 team that stunk up the

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Missouri 2018 Preview: Will Drew Lock light up the offense?

Midway through the 2017 season, Missouri was the Titanic. The ship was leaky, the wide receivers were dropping catches like there was no tomorrow, and everything was bad. After the Tigers were slapped by Auburn, head coach Barry Odom became the laughing stock of the SEC – and college football – by giving a sermon. But after they rattled off six games in a row at the end of the season (before they lost to Texas in the Texas Bowl), there is a degree of confidence for Missouri. And that’s been heightened by the decision by quarterback Drew Lock to stay. The press doesn’t believe it. They believe that Missouri will finish 4th in the SEC East. The Mizzodcast – one

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SEC fans of the year: The Tennesseee fans who stayed around

In 2017, it was easy to be an Alabama fan. It was easy to be a Georgia fan. It was easy to be an Auburn fan. Hell, at the end of the season, it was easy to be a LSU fan and a Missouri fan. But it wasn’t an easy year for Tennessee fans. This inaugural award doesn’t go to the Tennessee fans who started up the #EmptyNeyland campaign, aimed to show fans’ chagrin at Butch Jones. It doesn’t go to the people who jumped on the ‘No Schiano’ bandwagon, like my former priest, who claimed not to care about Tennessee – or any college football for that matter – because he was ‘too busy with kids, but managed to

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Great hire: Tennessee hires Pruitt to be new head coach

It came at the cost of one athletic director and a lot of red faces in Knoxville. A lot of Volunteers fans were the butt of jokes about the social media. And then Tennessee hired a former head coach as an AD, and within a few days, the school had installed a new coach from hated rival Alabama – defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. While details on Pruitt’s contract are not known, Pruitt was hired over Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. All three had done fantastic jobs at their respective schools this season. Of course, the hiring of Pruitt did not come without its controversy. Apparently Jimmy Haslem, the school’s powerhouse booster, wanted Tucker for the

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Tennessee fires AD John Currie, replaces him with Fulmer

If there is a celebration to be had in Knoxville at the moment, then surely today is an early tonic: Tennessee has just fired John Currie, its athletic director. They have now replaced him with Phil Fulmer, who was run out of Knoxvville as head coach in 2008, despite winning the Vols a National Championship. Although Currie was regularly attacked for the Greg Schiano incident, where he reportedly offered the Ohio State DC the job, and then had VolNation throw it back in face with such force that he had to rescind it again, he really should have left his post some time beforehand. Under his eight-month guidance, Tennessee football was a shambles. The Vols didn’t win a SEC game and finished the

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Will Jimbo Fisher go to Texas A&M?

This weekend, Georgia and Auburn are playing for the SEC Championship, with the winner going into the College Football Play-Off. But if we’re honest, all eyes (that aren’t in Athens and Auburn), are on College Station, Texas. You see, on Sunday the Aggies let go of head coach Kevin Sumlin. To a lot of the fanbase, it was hardly a surprise.We didn’t like the fact that Sumlin was fired at first, and then we were reminded of his SEC home record. Sumlin hadn’t won a SEC home game since October 2015, which is a hell of a long time if you think about. The team had regressed since Johnny Manziel’s Heisman year, and there hasn’t been a quarterback that has been able

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No surprises: Tennessee fires Butch Jones

There was a smell around the Tennessee program that was putrid, and absolutely undeniable. It was that of garbage, desperation, and giving up. It was joked that Tennessee’s players had given up on Butch Jones way before his firing on the day after the school dropped 50 points to Missouri. It was obvious the fans had. There was a social media tidal wave of fans saying: “Fire Butch Jones” (aside from the wags – mostly in the SEC East – with signs begging Big Orange to keep him), and there was even a failed attempt by the fanbase to show displeasure against the current management by emptying Neyland for the Southern Mississippi game – ironically the last game that the now-departed head coach

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More trouble at Tennessee? Key RB suspended after pot arrest

If it wasn’t the persistent losing, or the middle fingers put up against Alabama fans, or even the hot seat that’s frying Butch Jones right now, then the under-fire coach has had to do something else: Suspend his top running back. John Kelly, who’s had 615 yards on 125 carries and 6 TDs, as well as 26 receptions for 255 yards (averaging 9.8 yards per reception), is a key playmaker, was cited on marijuana possession on Wednesday. “Kelly consented to the search, and officers asked Ignont to get out of the car, the statement said. During the search, they found “a clear plastic baggie containing a green leafy substance believed to be marijuana” as well as “a glass pipe usually used

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Who should go: Bret Bielema or Butch Jones?

If you had one choice of who to get rid of who would it be? Would it be Tennessee head coach Butch Jones, who seems to pour out vomit whenever he speaks or Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema, who is looking increasingly inept as his team falls down the tubes? Tennessee is currently 3-2 overall (0-2 in the SEC), while Arkansas is 2-3 overall (0-2) in the SEC. It’s the 0-4 combined record in our beloved conference that the fanbases won’t stand for. We put out the cases for both: THE CASE FOR BUTCH JONES The saddest thing for Butch Jones is that he doesn’t measure up to the stars of the past for Tennessee. Before he was run out

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