Written by Andy Staples at SI.com
Want to understand precisely why Butch Jones has lost a healthy chunk of Tennessee’s fanbase? Read the answer to this question posed to Jones on Monday at SEC Media Days.
Question: Coach, considering the last season and the fact that you guys were a top 10 team and only finished 9-4, 22nd overall, do you view that last season as a disappointment?
Jones: I don’t view it as a disappointment. The way I view it is we didn’t accomplish everything we set ourselves out to. And, again, our goal every year is to win a championship and compete to win a championship. So, was it a disappointment? No. Did we not accomplish some of the things we set out to do? Absolutely. We have to learn from the things that went wrong that we could have done better.
Was last season a disappointment? Of course it was a disappointment. The most talented Tennessee team since the Phillip Fulmer era broke an 11-year losing streak against Florida, won on a Hail Mary at Georgia and then somehow failed to win a down SEC East. The Volunteers essentially lost the division when they lost to a 6-6 South Carolina team despite coming off an open date. Then, when asked in November how his departing players might feel having never won the East title, Jones said this…
Tennessee fans watching Butch’s press conference pic.twitter.com/y78FG4wlJU
— O&W Report (@OandWReport) November 21, 2016
Five days later, the Vols lost out on a Sugar Bowl trip when Vanderbilt hung 45 points on them in the final game of the regular season. In terms of Big Orange indignities, it doesn’t get much bigger or oranger.
Then, after a National Signing Day that didn’t produce as much buzz as the ones earlier in Jones’s tenure, Jones explained the lack of five-star players this way: “Everyone gets into the whole two-star, three-star, four-star, five-star thing,” Jones told a crowd in Nashville according to Wes Rucker of 247Sports.com. The only five-star that we even concern ourselves with is a five-star heart. We want five-star hearts and five-star competitors.”
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