Former Central Michigan and Cincinnati head coach Butch Jones has likely never encountered a situation similar to the one in which he currently finds himself.
Transition is the mantra in Knoxville, and Jones is in the midst of a daunting overhaul in his second year as the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers.
If any coach is equipped to handle the climb ahead, it’s Jones. His program is wasting no time in rebuilding the Volunteers into a SEC contender.
Jones’ team sits at 4-5, but has winnable games against Kentucky, Missouri and Vanderbilt left.
Jones made his name during stints at Central Michigan and Cincinnati. He won a combined four conference championships in six seasons with the Chippewas and Bearcats. Prior to being named head coach at Central Michigan, Jones was an offensive assistant for 16 years at various programs.
His first head coaching job came at his alma mater, Ferris State, in the mid-1990s. As the primary play-caller, Jones built the nation’s top offense. He developed one of college football’s most potent spread attacks during two seasons as the wide receivers coach under Rich Rodriguez at West Virginia.
Even prior to his stint at Ferris State, his first job in football was a role away from the field.
“I started off taking a volunteer job in the summer months, volunteering to do the laundry for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in training camp,” Jones told USA Today’s Paul Myerberg earlier this summer. “I did that job for about two weeks, and then I remember getting elevated to being on the field. And you never know what experiences or what sort of relationships you’ll build, and that’s where I met Doug Graber, who was the defensive coordinator, at the end of May. When he became the head football coach at Rutgers he asked me to come with him as a graduate assistant.”
Jones’ first full-time job was at Wilkes University where he made $25,000 per year — which Jones told Myerberg was good money at the time.
Coaching is all about making sacrifices, even if it means moving up. That’s how the best coaches get the biggest jobs.
“To move up in the profession I took a nine-month job with no benefits, making $15,000 a year at Ferris State,” Jones told Myerberg. “But I felt professionally I needed to move up. I had a wife that was willing to sacrifice.”
Jones has sacrificed, and now he’s armed with more resources than at any point in his career. He’s preached the “brick-by-brick” philosophy, and has beaten South Carolina in consecutive years.
Jones’ journey has certainly been a unique one; he’s stressed Tennessee is his dream job.
Hopefully for Volunteer fans and college football fans, he can turn it around.
After living in Birmingham, Ala., Jordan left the ground zero of SEC Nation to head south to Florida to tell the unique stories of the renowned tradition of SEC football. In his free time, his mission is to find the best locales around.
