Sorry for the radio silence.

We weren’t renaming ourselves.

Or firing people – because there’s one of us, and that’s me.

It’s because I requested a transfer.

Put myself in the transfer portal.

And the wife and I have moved to the hot cooker of football – Texas.

We’re in Houston, where the oil money flows like the water in the Bayou and the mosquitos are manic.

It’s great because I can watch SEC games in the same time-zone, not sit there watching until 5am every morning like I have one in the UK.

Our only problem has been the internet. AT&T sucks.

But thanks to the next-door neighbors, we’re back.

For half a season.

But half a season’s better than no season at all.

And let’s be honest: Apart from LSU’s trip to Texas, Auburn vs Florida and (maybe) Auburn vs Texas A&M, we haven’t had the big-time SEC games yet.

Of course there have been evolutions. LSU’s suddenly playing a spread offense. Gus Malzahn’s job security actually looked OK for a week, while Derek Mason looks like he’s got one foot out of the door. And people are starting to talk about ‘that’ Missouri’s defense.

The same things remain. Alabama and Georgia remain the teams to beat. Nick Saban is still yelling at the press. Players are still getting booted off teams. No-one likes the NCAA.

So we’re back, SEC. And we’re happy.

It’s nighttime in Death Valley. The War Eagle Flies. We’re running through the T. We’re chomping. We’re asking how ‘bout them Dawgs. We’re clanging, pig sooein’, rammer jammerin’, Ole miss by damn’. We’re a 12^th Man, the ZOU in MIZ, a Commodore, and a Wildcat. There’s even 2001 or maybe a Sandstorm.

Our churches aren’t small. They are megachurches, holding a screaming congregation that will bury you with noise. They’ve even been allowed some in-game communion wine to add to their palates during services now. It should make Saturday church a little louder. When they win with a God-given upset, they jump over railings, get stuck in hedges, surf goalposts through crowded streets and toilet paper trees. When they lose, they look like their world has been torn apart. The pretty sorority girls and young frats with their bow ties look miserable. The painted clowns look clownish and stunned. All of them use words to the heavens that they wouldn’t take with grandma to church.

But in our churches, it’s important to know our pastors. There are 14 of them. If they bring home The Ultimate Prize, then the size of the statue won’t do the achievement justice. Of course, the pastor must obey the main commandment of SEC football: Thou Shalt Not Lose. Particularly if it’s the cardinal sin of losing Eggs, third Saturdays, big games or Cocktail Parties – or losing too many SEC games. If they do, hotter seats than hell will appear and behinds will sit on them. Pastor Gus of Auburn has sought redemption a couple of time from being excommunicated. But this year’s another year. It doesn’t matter if you’re likeable. If you don’t help the congregation reach the higher plain, you’re out. Some elders will give a new pastor two or three years to work their magic, but after that, notice will be hammered on the door like Martin Luther did with his articles.

To make a pastor successful to his congregations, he must be able to bring in the moving parts from smaller, younger churches every season. Churches aren’t expected to fizzle out. We at the SEC don’t mind paying for talent, as long as we don’t get caught. Much. And after their success in college, they go to Big Church Sundays. We implore Mr Goodell, high elder of the professional league, to skip the preliminaries and just call your professional conference the SEC-FL? After all, our boosters probably pay more than some of your teams do. This year, Tua will again make the tongues waggle, although we’re also excited by Bryant, Swift, Fromm, Delphit, Jeudy, Mond, Williams, Stingley and a guy based in the Mid-West known only as ‘Albert O’. But there will be many more names by season-end. Because this is the SEC.

The pastors and the congregrations know who the biggest church in our movement are. At the moment, they are in Tuscaloosa and Athens. They are going to be pretty good in the Year of Our Lord 2019, we hear. They’ve got the West and East divisions running scared and their schedules measure up sweetly. It’s hard to see who is going to beat them. Hell, it’s hard to see who’s going to give them a good fight. We expect more drama at the SEC Championship Game. And no trick plays please, Kirby. The likes of LSU, Auburn and Florida will feel like ‘also-rans’, even if that’s not the case. There’s always room for the upset. See the last time Georgia rolled into Death Valley. Take a moment in thinking about the orders of service for 14 teams for the Pastor Jimbo’s congregation in College Station. It’s downright evil.

But there will be competition for the Ultimate Prize this year from other denominations. The congregation in Clemson in the Atlantic Denomination is pretty good. As are Sooners from Oklahoma in the Southwest. There are the people of ‘The’ and ‘Big Blue’ in icier Big 11, and we’re heard that there might even be a good team in the NorthWest who are known as Huskies or Ducks in the driven down out West. But against us, can they really hold their own? If there’s two teams that will compete with us for the Ultimate Prize, we’ll go for the ‘Eyes and the Tigers. The rest will falter and fall.

Beyond the transfers, the head coaches, the stadium reductions and the backhanders to recruits, the NCAA can change something else that would really take the sport a step forward: The schedules.

The ACC and SEC play 8 in-conference games and 4 non-conference games, while the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big XII all play nine.

Gus Malzahn and Nick Saban both expressed a preference for nine games. In fact, Nick Saban has been lobbying for it since 2012, while Gus Malzahn last year admitted he’s had a Damascus experience on scheduling (probably because Auburn’s is so arduous year after year): “Nine I think is best for us moving forward to make the schedules more equal across the conference.”

Kirby Smart of Georgia – also one of the SEC’s most powerful coaches – joined the ‘pro’ shout. He said: “I think it [would be] a good thing, but I think you will have teams with more losses. Does it affect a team getting in the playoff? I don’t know, but I know you have a lot more games to get up for, a lot more good rivalry games. It’s not just about travelling, it’s just as much about the atmosphere of playing an SEC opponent, I think you are playing more comparable teams to your talent level, I think it’s important for college football.”

Other coaches haven’t expressed an opinion – possibly because half of them lost their jobs after the 2017 season, and the new ones have yet to have a voice. The only time that voters voted to keep the schedule as-is was 2013. Will Muschamp, while he was at Florida, said that it was likely to move to nine games in 2013, but never happened.

The ACC has done the same. While this isn’t a huge surprise bearing in mind the ACC and SEC are two of the biggest superpower conferences in college football right now (although the ACC Network is still going to be minor compared to the SEC Network and the Big Ten Network (that may well turn around during basketball season), it has to change.

For the fans! 

Why? Because not only are Big Ten, Big XII and Pac-12 looking at tougher, in-conference schedules which have in the end worked out nicely for the ACC and SEC, which have captured the last four National Championships. Both Clemson and Alabama in the last four days have lost less than five games. Combined.

Also in the SEC, the way that the rivalries work is rather stupid. What could be more dislikeable than putting together one permanent rival and one division rival?

It means that the likes of Alabama and Georgia hardly play each other in the regular season, and teams like Auburn get royally screwed because they have to play Georgia – and Alabama – every season.

We get that SEC fans like their rivalries. We love them too. If it was a nine-game format, the Iron Bowl will still exist. So will the Egg Bowl, the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, and LSU vs Alabama. We can still have the major cross-divisional rivalries like the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry (Auburn vs Georgia) and the Third Saturday in October, but we can also have one more cross-divisional games, which means the fans (probably quite important) get to see more East vs West games (which may reverse the trend of declining attendances, too), which will also be good for the ones that pay the bills – the SEC Network, CBS or ESPN.

Why should the SEC and ACC changing their schedules change college football in general? Easy. It shuts up the argument altogether. It makes for equality between FBS Conferences, shutting up the whole “we play more in-conference games than you”, because the other one (“We play in a more difficult conference than you”) becomes null and void. Not only that, it’s an easier job for the College Football Play-Off Committee to work out who’s should be ‘in’ with a flat schedule, and also, it pretty much shuts-up massive controversy.

What about the NCAA?

The NCAA will argue that ‘scheduling is not our business’, but that’s absolute crap. If the NCAA is happy to govern everything else, then why not govern one of the key aspects of the game? Not only that, but why are the conferences letting coaches or Athletic Directors – who all have biases on this subject but may well be fired before the next vote comes out (the SEC last voted on it in 2013 and ACC ADs voted on it in 2016) – vote on this altogether. The NCAA should mandate this and that would be that.

The ones that will suffer, inevitably, will be the smaller non-FBS schools, which rely on coming to a stadium and getting the living crap beaten out of them for $1 million (there are quite a few exceptions.

But unfortunately, college football is not a charity. Smaller FCS schools will still make their money. But unless there will be less of them. Will this lead to a shutdown of smaller programs? Sadly, probably. But will it be better for college football as a whole we see more and more in-conference rivalries? Definitely.

Former SEC Commissioner Mike Slive has passed away aged 77 after losing his battle with cancer.

He lived from 1940 to 2018, and is survived by Liz, his wife of 49 years.

Slive was the commissioner of the SEC from 2002 to 2015, where under his guise the conference won numerous national championships across a number of sports – most famously including football. In all, the SEC won 81 national championships in 17 of its 21 sponsored sports during Slive’s tenure, the press release announcing his passing away said.

With Slive as commissioner, the SEC expanded from 12 to 14, adding Missouri and Texas A&M.

Under Slive’s tenure, the SEC also formed a powerful TV partnership with ESPN, which generated untold millions for the conference, helping to accelerate the development of university facilities for all 14 universities.

During his time in Birmingham, Slive was also the driving force behind a four-team college football play-off, which ended up paying off. A SEC team has been an ever-present since the play-off started.

Slive also started Conference USA and NCAA Division II conference the Great Midwest Conference.

It’s a strange few weeks in college football. It’s not the summer yet so we haven’t seen SEC players get arrested for robbery, possession of weed, public intoxication, and fights. Spring practice has ended so there are plenty of questions. Players who aren’t going to start are looking to graduate to other programs. We think it’s a childish approach, but then again, that’s just us.

So we decided on a retrospective. Here are your top SEC games of the 2017 season.

1. Georgia 54, Oklahoma 48: Down 31-17 at the half of the National Championship Semi-Final, Georgia takes the game to double-overtime before Sony Michel takes it to the house for a 27-yard touchdown. Talk about redemption for Michel: It was his fumble with 6:52 left in the fourth quarter that came back for a TD and nearly blew the game for the Bulldogs (and then Nick Chubb saved the day).
2. Alabama 26, Georgia 23: Alabama sometimes wins driving a stick up your behind, and sometimes they win dramatically. But Nick Saban knows one thing: How to win. After an awful first half by Jalen Hurts, Alabama switches its man behind the O-Line to Tua Tagovailoa, who is sensational, throwing the ball to DeVonta Smith for the winning TD. The coaches watching the game as part of the live feed saw the bad coverage coming a mile off, but for UGA fans, it meant yet another wait for a major championship. Still, what a game….
3. Missouri 48, Arkansas 45: Missouri showed us for one final time in the 2017 season: The offense was awesome, the defense was clueless. And Bret Bielema was fired after the game. The game itself was a fun one, featuring FIVE lead changes, and over 1,300 yards of total offense (and three turnovers).
4. Florida 26, Tennessee 20: Winning a game on a Hail Mary is always a cool thing to do. I was watching the game in a bar in California waiting for the Ole Miss vs Cal game to start, and everyone was stunned. Particularly the dude in the orange. The reaction from the UF Student Section is just amazing. I would have sworn too if I was there.
5. Texas A&M 50, Arkansas 43 (OT):  This rivalry has never failed to deliver in JerryWorld. Razorbacks’ hearts were once again broken, and Aggies fans had something to smile about. It might not have been one for the defensive purists, but SEVEN lead changes makes it quite the game for anyone who loves watching football (unless you’re a fan of either team, and then you’re probably still recovering from your heart attack).
6. Alabama 31, Mississippi State 24: After having an awful first half, Jalen Hurts comes back from the dead to lead Bama to an unbeaten season-preserving victory, throwing the game-winner with 25 seconds left. Mississippi managed to get two tries at a Hail Mary, but college football’s rule about pass interference saved the day.
7. LSU 27, Auburn 23: With two minutes to go in the first half of of one of the hottest games in LSU history, Ed Orgeron was out of a job. LSU was down 23-7 to one of their biggest SEC West rivals. Then with 32 seconds left, Russell Gage scored to make it 23-14. The Tigers held Auburn in the third quarter and scored 13 in the fourth to win out, and no-one could quite understand what had happened. Suddenly, the seat was warming for Gus Malzahn. And then Auburn smashed Georgia and Alabama on successive weeks.
8. Ole Miss 37, Kentucky 34: Kentucky once again find a way to lose. This time it was with 5 seconds left. Oxford crowned a new king of The Grove, Jordan Ta’amu.
9. Georgia 20, Notre Dame 19: Georgia fans certainly got their mouths moving before this one, crowding out Wrigley Field , getting screwed over for game tickets , and Calling The Dawgs during Brian Kelly’s Notre Dame Radio Show in a bar. The game was pretty good, too, with QB Jake Fromm getting crowned as the New King Of Athens.
10. LSU 17, Florida 16: You think it’s strange why I put this exhibition of inept offense as one of the games of the season, but I give you two things. The Florida fans’ excellent rendition of Tom Petty’s “I won’t back down” , other UF fans getting upset at the LSU band for playing “Neck”, and Florida’s kicker Eddie Piniero made a pinata of himself in the third quarter by missing an extra point that ended up winning the game for LSU.

A lot of players who come out of the SEC make good NFL players. Some even make Hall of Fame players.

But it’s strange to think that the biggest college football powerhouse in the SEC – Alabama – hasn’t had a No.1 overall draft pick since 1948.

So it got us thinking: When was the last time every SEC school had a first overall pick? For some it was very recently (Myles Garrett, Texas A&M 2017), and for some (ie Arkansas, Florida, Missouri), they are still waiting.

There are a couple of SEC times who haven’t had one in their history. Then there are some schools who seem to churn them out.

So here we go:

Alabama: 1948 (Harry Gilmer)

Arkansas: NEVER

Auburn: 2011 (Cam Newton)

Florida: NEVER

Georgia: 2009 (Matt Stafford)

Kentucky: 1999 (Tim Couch)

LSU: 2007 (JaMarcus Russell)

Missouri: NEVER

Mississippi State: NEVER

Ole Miss: 2004 (Eli Manning)

South Carolina: 2014 (Jadeveon Clowney)

Tennessee: 1998 (Peyton Manning)

Texas A&M: 2017 (Myles Garrett)

Vanderbilt: 1952 (Bill Wade)

The teams with the most No.1 overall picks in the SEC are Georgia and Auburn (4 each) and Tennessee, LSU and South Carolina have all spawned 2 each.

Bret Bielema is out at Arkansas after five years at the helm.

‘Bert’, as he’s ‘affectionately’ known by social media, was fired after the Razorbacks were beaten 48-45 in a thriller at home to Missouri, leaving the school with a 4-8 record. This is the second coach that has been fired this season after a loss to the Tigers – the first was Tennessee’s Butch Jones.

Bielema was fired almost immediately after the game. There were rumors that he had been fired as he walked off the field, but Arkansas pointed out that they hadn’t been that cruel – it was ‘actually in the coach’s office by the visitor’s locker room’, ESPN stated.

Bielema was quick to protect himself, telling the press that six out of his Top 10 players were available to play a ‘significant’ time for the Razorbacks, and he also admitted that that team didn’t have the depth of SEC West competitors. He also noted that in the five years that he’s been at the helm, he had the toughest schedule in the SEC.  Arkansas finished 1-7 in the SEC this year, with their lone win coming over Ole Miss this season in what was ironically one of the most exciting games of the conference’s fairly-moribund season.

Bielema’s SEC record was outright terrible, with a 10-24 SEC record, and a 27-29 overall record that included some embarrassing losses, particularly to Toledo. His only positive win percentage with the Hogs was bowl games (2-1).

There were some good wins during Bielema’s time, including shut-outs of ranked opponents LSU and Ole Miss in 2014, and a bowl trouncing of former hated rival Texas in the Texas Bowl in 2014.

But they weren’t enough to paper over the cracks of what was a disappointing reign for a state employee that was being paid $4.1 million by the school as well as having a contract buyout of $5.1 million.

OUR TAKE

If we’re honest, the fact that Arkansas finished bottom of the SEC West behind an Ole Miss team (who it ironically beat!) that had the shadow of NCAA sanctions floating over them and an interim coach, their second straight losing SEC record, and the fact that in Bielema’s time, they couldn’t beat their SEC West rivals very much (they had a 0-5 record against massive rival Texas A&M, which included THREE overtime games in four years, was 0-5 against Alabama, 1-4 against Auburn, 1-4 against Mississippi State and 2-3 against LSU. The only SEC West team Bielema ended having a winning record against was Ole Miss, with a 4-1 record). We all knew (pretty much) that the writing was on the wall for Bielema when Arkansas fired its head coach Jeff Long earlier this year.

The best thing about Crap Saturday is that that weekend ends all the weekends of crap games, and it’s one week before our favorite long weekend of the year: Rivalry Week.

But we’ll get onto Rivalry Week tomorrow, once we’ve basked in the glory of last Saturday’s incredible SEC schedule, which saw zero upsets, one close, fun game and….er…. (in other non-SEC news) Baker Mayfield grabbed his crotch at some Kansans, and then wrote his usual apology.

So here’s your SEC rankings from 1-14.

1. Alabama: Heroically beat Mercer to preserve unbeaten season. Games like the Mercer vs Alabama is why we love SEC Football.
2. Auburn: Struggled early against Louisiana-Monroe, but eventually hit the gear they were looking for. They could have done with an easier tune-up before the Iron Bowl.
3. Georgia: The Dawgs absolutely dominated Kentucky. We already can’t wait to the SEC Championship Game.
4. Mississippi State: One week they play like they play like Champions, the next week they struggle against Arkansas. That’s why they dropped a beat. We still don’t understand Dan Mullen’s great mystery of a team. But it’s fun.
5. LSU: Beat Tennessee in horrific conditions in which we saw goalposts nearly fall down, an Ed Orgeron interview for the ages, and Noah building an ark.
6. Texas A&M: Won a thriller in Oxford where first-half defense was so bad we thought it was going to be a Pac-12 game. Sadly, both sides managed to play some defense in the second half, and the Aggies won 31-24. Still, it was a fun game.
7. Missouri: The Tigers continued their surge by crushing Vanderbilt on the road. They are now bowl-eligible. After the Purdue game, that seemed unthinkable. Will Drew Lock go after this junior year? Probably….but it’s inadvisable.
8. Ole Miss: We’re looking forward to the Egg Bowl a hell of a lot more than we did when the Rebels lost at Cal a month or two ago.
9. South Carolina: Beat Wofford. But we’ll say this – if the Gamecocks played Kentucky right now, they’d probably beat them.
10. Kentucky: Housed by Georgia. But the Cats are bowl-eligible, and that’s fine for Stoops & Co.
11. Arkansas: Actually played pretty well against Mississippi State. You have to wonder what might have happened if their QBs hadn’t either been injured or suspended.
12. Florida: The Gators actually ruined my weekend, because they beat UAB and we love Bill Clark so much that we wanted a fairytale ending to what’s been a glorious season. It’s not that we hate Florida, it’s just that we love UAB. Because UAB’s amazing.
13. Tennessee: Battled the elements against LSU, but they were closed down by an excellent defense.
14. Vanderbilt: Eeew. The Commodores are so damned bad at the moment that I’m taking Tennessee in the game this week.

Some rude SEC hater (@SECexposed) called this weekend of the college football season #chickenshitSaturday, and when I looked at the SEC schedule, I had to agree. If there are any Alabama fans getting excited over the chance of watching the Crimson Tide eviscerate Mercer, then you probably need to get out more. But please don’t poison trees or smoke in Bryant-Denny Stadium. Both will get you in trouble and be the butt of jokes here, there and everywhere.

Anyway, back to this Saturday. We’re christening it ‘Crap Saturday’, because the schedule’s a load of crap.

The biggest game is….is…. LSU’s visit to coach-less Tennesseee? Missouri’s bid for getting into an unlikely bowl against Vanderbilt, who still don’t have a SEC win? Texas A&M’s trip to Ole Miss….where both teams have given up on their season? Kentucky vs Georgia, which is expected to be less spectacle and more slaughter? Frankly, we’re repping UAB’s trip to The Swamp this weekend.

So here are your weekend’s most interesting games. We’re not going to bother with Alabama hosting Mercer, Auburn hosting UL-Monroe and South Carolina-Wofford because there’s going to be nothing close about any of those games. We’d be surprised if Vegas is going to let anyone bet on these either.

OK, so here we go…

1. UAB at Florida (-10.5): Bill Clark has done more of a miracle with that UAB team that any well-pocketed SEC head coach has done with their team. Remember this about UAB: Certain parts of University of Alabama governing board wanted to wipe the school off the face of the earth. Well, they are back, and UAB is a magical 7-3. We know about Florida and the fact that it’s been a nightmare. What else do you want us to say? Florida’s a 10.5 point favourite in this one. PREDICTION: Florida by 14. UAB keeps it interesting until the fourth quarter. 
2. LSU (-15.5) at Tennessee: There were great parties in Knoxville when news came through that Butch Jones had been fired at Tennessee. And then Jones added to his delightful resume by walking off with $8 million and immediately started calling recruits to tell them to go find somewhere else to play. Anyway, LSU comes into town to play a team led by Brady Hoke – himself a bit of a disaster when it came to head-coaching (Michigan, cough! cough!) – who’s now the interim head coach after spending time being the defensive line coach (yeah, that defensive line that gave up 400 yards to Missouri on Saturday). LSU isn’t on fire (they didn’t play well against Arkansas until mid-way through the second quarter of the game), but they’ll have too much for the Vols. PREDICTION: LSU by 21
3. Mississippi State (-12) at Arkansas: The pre-end-of-season bloodbath in the SEC may continue in Fayetteville this weekend as Bret Bielema hosts a Mississippi State who must feel more than a little aggrieved to have lost their game against Alabama. Not only did they lose to some terrible coaching calls, but they also lost to some terrible refereeing ones, too. Now, against Arkansas, which keeps losing games because they are flat-out terrible, they should have no problem. The problem for MSU will be how motivated they will be after a soul-destroying loss. PREDICTION: MSU by 10. 
4. Kentucky at Georgia (-21.5): If Georgia catches the throws they are meant to catch and come out more disciplined than they were against Kentucky, then Kentucky’s going to get run over. Georgia should play angry – because they are still in a shout for a College Football Play-Off place. And with Alabama and Auburn playing joke opponents on Saturday, this is their chance to get noticed…for good reasons. PREDICTION: Georgia by 35. Most of the fourth quarter we will have to listen to Nessler and Danielson prattle on about why the Dawgs didn’t play like this against Auburn.
5. Texas A&M at Ole Miss (-3): This may well the most fun game of the day, which both teams prepared to put up the points. Maybe that’s why Vegas is giving an O/U of 69.5. Of course, both quarterbacks will now let themselves down and the only highlight will be Christian Kirk running for his usual touchdown, and Texas A&M getting out with 10-3 victory where half of Oxford has left to go back to the tailgate. But if Nick Starkel and Jordan Ta’amu shine – as well as WR gods A.J. Brown (Ole Miss) and Kirk – then we could be in for a fine, fun game. We are expecting a lot of points. PREDICTION: Texas A&M wins by 7, but the O/U is well over the 69.5. We can’t wait! 
6. Missouri (-8.5) at Vanderbilt: Missouri’s flying high after one of booking in back-to-back impressive games against Florida and Tennessee (albeit one without coach, and one barely with one). Drew Lock can throw bombs, and the running backs are looking very, very good. This all bodes well for Vanderbilt, who hasn’t been able to stop anybody since they were run over by Alabama, and were destroyed by Kentucky, who normally plays down to its opponents. This does not bode well for the Commodores. PREDICTION: Missouri by 17 in a high-scorer.

Oh, and congratulations to Alabama, Auburn and South Carolina on your hard-fought victories.

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 won during his time in Knoxville.

Like a lot of his head coaching colleagues in the success-rabid SEC, Butch Jones was already on the hot seat when the 2017 season started. The team had just lost to Vanderbilt, had continued its run of losing to Alabama, and wasn’t competitive within the SEC anymore. Then there was the press conference were Jones referred to his team as ‘Champions of Life’ that made him sound less head coach, and more preacher. It also made the Tennessee program look like a joke, which can’t have helped the school’s relationship with the boosters. Then there was the trash can to celebrate turnovers by the Tennessee defense. By Butch Jones’ last game at Tennessee, the Volunteers were just that: Trash.

Butch Jones is the latest head coach that hasn’t lasted in Knoxville since Philip Fulmer left in 2008. Jones’ record wasn’t actually terrible, with a 51-30 overall record with a .588 overall record. Unfortunately, Jones’ SEC record wasn’t great, coming in at 14-18 with a .438 record…which should have been better in what has been a consistently down SEC East. However, it’s been noted that he was 5-15 against AP-ranked teams and 3-12 against Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

“We have been fortunate to have Coach Jones lead our program for the last five years. During that time, the program has improved tremendously in the areas of academics, discipline and community involvement,” athletic director John Currie said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we are not where we need to be competitively. For that reason, I have asked Coach Jones to step down as head football coach. I know Coach Jones will be successful moving forward, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”

The problem for Butch Jones, is where else might hire him? If he goes, he seems that he will have to take a big step down in earnings. He was on a $4.11 million salary with the Vols, and his buyout is $8 million, because he had a contract signed until 2021. It was also noted that UT would have to pay less than the buyout fee if and when Jones gets hired again.

By what he’s said during press conferences and the way Tennessee fell apart, it’s likely to be more of a ‘if’ than a ‘when’.