Rashaan Gaulden touches on his relationship with Butch Jones, how close Vols were to making bowl game
On the defensive side of the ball, Tennessee didn’t have a better player last season than Rashaan Gaulden. Following his big season for the Vols, the redshirt junior decided against a return for one last collegiate season and instead declared early for the 2018 NFL Draft.
While the majority of Vol Nation may not ever want to hear anything positive about Butch Jones, Gaulden had nothing negative to say about the former Tennessee coach. Gaulden even noted he has a “really good relationship with Coach Jones,” during his recent Tuesday appearance on SiriusXM program SEC This Morning.
The defensive back believes the Vols did not give up on Jones last season but mentioned that the adversity of losing so many close games did appear to get to the team. It’s Gaulden’s belief that had a few games gone differently at the end — he noted the Florida, South Carolina, and Kentucky games, Tennessee would have made a bowl game.
Here is a segment of his SiriusXM interview, shared by Frank Fowler, producer of SEC This Morning:
Despite the adversity and challenges Tennessee faced last year, @Gmoney_7era appreciates everything Former Head Coach, Butch Jones did to move the program forward. He broke it all down earlier on #SECThisMorning with @PeterBurnsESPN and @mspears96. pic.twitter.com/As0Y8SGFoR
— Frank Fowler (@FrankFowlerSEC) April 3, 2018
I get what he’s trying to say, but this feels like some shoulda coulda woulda stuff. Also, it’s one thing to be one game from .500, but three losses in the final minutes doesn’t really help Butch Jones’ case, since it shows that he didn’t get them to play the full 60 min.
That was the issue really with Jones right. He was never able to get a full product for 60 minutes in any game. Lots of individual reasons for that but it all boiled down to he just couldn’t put it all together for more than a few quarters in any game. Lots of times it was just enough to win. But lots of times it wasn’t also. It’s easy to say that we could have and maybe should have had at least 6 wind but we didn’t so what’s the point. Just support the new staff for now and hope they can do better is our only real option besides giving up.
Wins*