What Butch Jones said about Tennessee’s recruiting class
By Ethan Levine
Published:
Tennessee finished the day with the No. 4 class in the 247Sports industry composite rankings in the aftermath of the program’s first bowl appearance since 2011 and first bowl victory since the 2007 season.
Here’s what Butch Jones had to say about his third recruiting class with the Volunteers:
Opening statement…
“… Everything for us starts with a recruiting profile. We talk about that recruiting profile all the time. It is not by the rankings of four-star, five-star, three-star. It starts with the recruiting profile. It is broken into many components whether it is athletic related, position specific, academics, social and all the intangibles that it takes to be successful. We really wanted winners. We wanted individuals that played for state championships, that came from great high school programs. That was a big part of the profile this year. Also we talk about character from overall character to competitive character. We have spoken about continuing to improve the competitive component within our football program. We feel like we were able to do that.
“Then you venture into the needs of your program. I don’t think it is any secret that we needed to address some program issues in our offensive and defensive line. We were able to do that by signing five offensive linemen and six defensive linemen. That will add to the overall depth and competitive aspect at those positions.
“We secured home state. The top-three prospects are attending the University of Tennessee. That is where it starts. We secured home state and then were able to venture off into nine other states. We put a recruiting footprint into some areas that we weren’t able to get in the previous couple years. We continued to grow the state of Georgia, North Carolina and a lot of the surrounding states.
“Relationships and trust are really the foundation of a successful recruiting class. Everyone in our program, I thought, did a great job of really establishing those relationships and trust not just with the prospective student athlete but with the key stakeholders whether it is mom, dad, aunts, uncles and the mentors. Again, everything is bonded on relationships and that family environment we talk about.
“I understand that with this class comes great expectations and very rightfully so. I’m going to sit here like I do every signing day and guard against that in terms of these are still 17 and 18 year old individuals. They are still going to develop at their own pace. Things don’t get changed overnight. We are going through a process, but I thought today was a great step in the right direction. So I could sit up here and go through the packet with you and all of that but I really don’t want to do that. I would rather just answer your questions that you may have and go from there.”
On whether he will look at these players’ recruiting profiles again down the line…
“Absolutely. That’s a part of our quality control that we will actually start tomorrow, on the quality control of our recruiting profile, and now we have two classes that we can have evidence behind that recruiting profile. You’re always adapting and adjusting, but some of them are non-negotiable within the recruiting profile, but we’re always looking at that as why individuals develop more than others, where did we go wrong in the evaluation part of it. So again, we’re always constantly reviewing it, but there’s also some in terms of character, competitive character, some position specifics that are always non-negotiable as well.”
On what he expects from the true freshmen in 2015…
“We’ll still expect them to come in and contribute, and that’s still one of the great selling points within our football program. We’re still developing it, and still depth is an overall concern, especially on the offensive and defensive lines, but across the board we’re still not where we need to be from a depth standpoint, so we want every individual in this recruiting class to have the mentality that they are coming in and they are competing for jobs right away, they’re competing for playing time, and then we will see how they develop. I think it’s also a great benefit of having ten mid-year enrollees as well, so they’re getting a jumpstart academically, going through spring football, so we’ll know a little bit more where those ten individuals are as well at the conclusion of spring football.”
On his defensive line signees…
“The thing that we’ve been missing from our defense is an overall edge presence, in terms of depth and then size in front. If you look at the big bodies in this recruiting class, we wanted length. Length isn’t always measured just in height but in wingspan, and so we wanted to make sure we had that addressed. Obviously Kyle Phillips addresses that, Darrell Taylor addresses that. And then you look at our size inside with Shy Tuttle and Kahlil McKenzie, those two big defensive tackles, and then you have the quickness from Quay (Picou) that he’ll bring inside. He’ll be a great complement to those two individuals I just spoke about. Andrew Butcher is an individual who plays with a motor and plays with a high energy about himself. The six defensive linemen we brought in, they all complement each other, but they also have a little bit of a different skill set as well.”
On flipping four-star offensive tackle Drew Richmond from Ole Miss to Tennessee…
“It completed the class. Again, we get back to improving our overall athleticism on the offensive front and Drew obviously does that. He’s a left tackle, he’s very, very athletic, and when we watch film, one of the big things along with toughness is balance. When you watched Drew Richmond on video, he was never on the ground, he could always recover, and so I’m excited because he’s going to add to the offensive line in a great way to finish the recruiting class off, to stay in-state, Memphis, and to keep the top three players in-state at home was big for us. He brings everything that we’re looking for in an offensive lineman.”
On if he knew Richmond would sign with Tennessee when the day began…
“We did not. A lot of phone calls, last night, a lot of conversations. We knew we had a great opportunity, but he wanted to make me work right to the end, even prior to ten minutes before he signed, he called me thanking me and he said, ‘Will you still love me if I don’t come to the University of Tennessee?’ I told him love was conditional on some things. But, we are really fortunate to have him and really excited about his future here.”
On how he recruits defensive line prospects…
“… So much that goes into it from a growth standpoint, from a strength standpoint, but you look at the position specifics. You look at disruptive quickness, instincts in rushing the passer, the ability to win one-on-one matchups, using your hands, quickness of your feet and all the athleticism that is associated with it. But, it is a mental toughness game just like every position on the football team. When you play defensive line and offensive line, I always say it is like a fistfight in a phone booth on every single snap. Half our kids don’t know what a phone booth is anymore. That is what it takes. It takes a lot of mental endurance, a lot of mental toughness. That is really the greatest separator when you are trying to evaluate defensive linemen and how they grow and they develop. Look at Derek Barnett. Derek Barnett is one of the toughest-minded individuals I’ve ever been around in terms of his competitive component, his toughness both physically and mentally. That is what we are hoping these individuals will have as well.”
On what makes five-star defensive lineman Kahlil McKenzie a special player…
“I think with Kahlil McKenzie you have the complete package. We talked about the recruiting profile. Again, it starts with character. He has tremendous character. Great, great, great family. I think I broke the record for the longest in-home visit. I believe we were in there for over four hours. Then, I had a great opportunity to spend time with his father, Reggie, at the Oakland Raiders–about three more hours at their facility. He has a great family, so character is very high. The standard and expectations are very high, and you couple that–he’s extremely competitive. Then, you look at his stature. Right now, I think he is about 370 pounds, and I told him he needs to get down a little bit. He has great makeup. He has great get-off off the football. He uses his hands well. He is tough, and he has a passion for the University of Tennessee. You could see that throughout this whole recruiting process.”
On McKenzie’s impact in recruiting other prospects in the class…
“Yeah, he is almost too active (on social media). Kahlil helped us immensely, and it was all his doing. Again, he took great pride in this recruiting class. He forged relationships with every single individual within this recruiting class. I believe they had a group chat, and you could feel that closeness, that bond. When he came on his official visit, you could see he was the alpha male or the alpha dog. You could see that. Everybody followed him. Even some of our current players were following him, and that is just kind of the personality he has. He was instrumental.”
On his thoughts regarding Tennessee’s recruiting outside its home state…
“With this class, we had to go coast-to-coast. I think we have proven that Tennessee is a national brand. I think we have proven that we have the respect around the country of what we’re building here at Tennessee. We still have a long ways to go, and we were in a lot of recruiting battles for these young men. I’m very proud of last year’s recruiting class, and I think this just adds a whole other element to our current team. Again, we had to venture off into states that, being at Tennessee, we [hadn’t been to]. Maybe at previous stops, we had ventured into those states. You go into the state of Michigan, and you get one of the top players out of the state of Michigan, and we get him out of some people’s backyards. That is hard to do, and that isRobert Gillespie. Probably one of the most fearful things that I had in the recruiting process was I flew into Detroit, and they had one of their patented snowstorms that day, and you have an individual from Mississippi driving you around. He looks at me and says, `Coach, I’ve never driven in the snow like this before.’ So that was one of those recruiting stories. To be able to get John Kelly, get Sheriron Jones out of California, stay strong in the Atlanta area, in the state of Georgia, in the state of Virginia. Those states are very, very big for us. Obviously, taking care of home as well. It is very gratifying.”
On his thoughts on the annual recruiting calendar…
“Everything is accelerated, everything with the recruiting process. Right now, everyone is recruiting 26 team, 27 team and so it’s a long process. It’s a very tedious process with junior days and then you go into spring recruiting and then you go into the summer months and it’s critical that you get these prospective student-athletes on campus and you start building relationships with them and you can learn so much more about them when you get them on your campus. That’s really where your relationships really start to build, start to manifest themselves. Our coaches did a great job of really getting this recruiting class to campus and not just one or two times but on multiple, multiple occasions and that really helps grow the relationships. But you’re exactly right, it’s non-stop, it’s ever evolving each and every day and it does become more and more accelerated.”
On what he thinks is the biggest factor in recruiting…
“For us, it’s character. We spend an inordinate amount of time on character. To Danny’s question, when he talks about the recruiting calendar being accelerated, that’s one of the things. We can never compromise our evaluation. The way I look at it is that we’re also inviting these individuals into our football program. It’s a two-way street. They’re looking to pick us but we’re also inviting them into our football program. So there’s a lot that goes into it and when you can get individuals on campus, you’re able to evaluate that a little bit more. You’re able to really dive in and ask pertinent questions. Every moment you get is critical because for me, as the head coach I’m not allowed to go out during the spring. So my contact with them is very, very limited. I only get one in-person contact during the contact period, and that’s usually a home visit. When I go in, you’re trying a couple going into high school, meeting all the teachers, the professors, the high school coaches, and also going into the home and meeting the aunts, the uncles, mom, dad, everyone associated with the raising of the young man.
“There’s a lot that goes into it. The thing that we’re never going to compromise on is the overall character of the young man, and really finding out how competitive they are. To me, that’s what really separates individuals. Do they want to stay the course? Do they want to work hard or do they want to find the easy way out? I’ve heard too much, “Coach it’s too hard.” Well, to be a champion, it’s hard. Life is hard. How do they handle adversity? How do they persevere? And also the parents, we had a specialist come in and talk about the raising of kids now a days. They talked about how you get some parents that are busy preparing the path for the kid instead of the kid for the path, and that’s something that I try to raise our kids with. Those are all the recruiting dynamics, the elements that we look into when we’re evaluating a young man. There’s a lot that goes into it and it’s more than just football. Obviously, football is a big part of it, but there’s a lot more to it in our football program.”
On how added exposure can impact recruiting…
“It’s critical. Anytime that we can gain the national exposure that we have been able to gain here in the last two years speaks volumes because you have 2016 recruits calling in and so the more times you’re on national television, the more times they see Tennessee. I think that’s evidence of what we’re building here and what we have here and the positive energy, the positive momentum that we have. Our coaches and everyone in our football program has worked exceptionally hard to make this a reality. So I think it’s a big benefit, anytime they can see Tennessee on a national stage and have two consecutive top five recruiting classes is very big, but now that switches to us about the individual growth and development of every single player and that’s now the next step in our program is developing these young men to meet their fullest potential and be the best that they can possibly be because they are part of Tennessee football.”
On questions of cost of attendance scholarships and if they’ll be an issue down the line…
“Well, I do expect it to be a more of a base question, more broad type questions. We are able to discuss it a little bit towards the tail end of recruiting not really at the beginning of recruiting but once the rule passed, and more talk became of it, it became more widely spread in terms of conversations and questions so we were able to talk about that and I see moving forward that will be probably one of the biggest questions asked in moving forward through the next year’s recruiting cycle but I think the overall heightened awareness of that because of what happened the last couple weeks we started having more and more questions regarding that.”
NOTE: Quotes courtesy of the University of Tennessee athletics department
A former newspaper reporter who has roamed the southeastern United States for years covering football and eating way too many barbecue ribs, if there is such a thing.
