Last Friday’s introductory press conference, gave us lots of insight on Tennessee’s new head man:

On His Staff:

I’m going to start off and answer some questions but first of all, our coaching staff. I’m up here today, I can assure that we will put together the best football staff in the country. Not just the Southeastern Conference, but the entire country. I have a checklist of what I’m looking for. First of all it starts with character. I want individuals with tremendous character and then I want great teachers. Great teachers in the game of life, great teachers in the game of football. Fundamentalists, motivators. There’s a difference between teaching and presenting. Anybody can present anything. What we want is great teachers, and individuals who have passion to be here at the University of Tennessee.

Ummm….I am pretty sure he wrote that down, but that is amazing. (If you couldn’t tell by now, Coach Jones has a very different style than Dooley)

On Tennessee Tradition:

To our letterwinners, you are the foundation. We will have an open door policy with our practices. You have laid the foundation for us to have much success for many years to come. I’m a firm believer that our letterwinners are the program. They will be welcomed back at any time. I look forward to getting to know everyone. I’ve had about 18 text messages from Charles Davis and I’ll probably get Peyton in trouble, but about four days ago I got a text message from Peyton Manning. He was selling me on Colorado. He said `It’s hard for a person from the University of Tennessee to selling someone to come to the University of Colorado.’ I wanted to text back `Well c’mon, let’s go. I want to go to Tennessee.’ So I look forward to obviously talking with him.

Erik Ainge is already impressed with Coach Jones’ desire to connect with the past. It’s one of our greatest recruiting tools. Which segues nicely into:

On Recruiting:

You win with players. Let me make no mistake that we are going to win first and foremost with the great state of Tennessee. We have tremendous high school coaches in this state. We are the state institution and we will own our state. We are going to be at every high in the state and our players are going to understand what is to wear the power T, they’re going to understand what it is to represent their home institution. I take great pride in that.

Jones started his UT career on Friday night by visiting one of the top recruits in the state: Nashville’s Corn Elder. Hopefully  Jones recruiting message sells. Very premature signs are that they will. Nashville’s Vic Wharton, Jalen Reeves-Maybin of Clarksville, and Riley Ferguson of Matthews North Carolina, all expressed their pleasure with Jones as the new hire.

On The SEC:

If you want to be best, you want to compete in the best and obviously the SEC is the best football conference in the country. I have many good friends that compete at this level, on the center stage and I look forward to it. I think what you have to do is look at our football staff and our body of work. Six years and four championships… I will be the first to tell you that Nick Saban and Les Miles had zero SEC experience when they came into the league, so that’s awesome.

Perfect answer coach. Perfect.

On the Fans:

First of all our fan base and myself have the same expectations. We’re working to be the best. We’re working to be number one every day. We’re working to be national champions and we’re working to be SEC champions. This program has done it and we’ll do it again. That’s the thing when you talk about things that attract you. The Tradition that we have here is second to none. The pride that we have here is second to none. All we have to do is get a student-athlete on campus. If we get a student-athlete on campus, they should be sold. The goals, the commitment, the resources. We know what we’re doing. When I spoke with Dave in the interview, I saw a vision. You keep growing. Whether you’re a director of athletics or a head football coach, you get to paint the vision for your athletic department and your football program. That’s one of the reasons that attracted me to come here as well. I have the same expectations. Nobody puts more expectations than my wife and my three boys. If we lose a game in the Jones house, they don’t talk to me for a week. I think they all have their own blogs too.

The guy has won for years and has had trouble filling 40,000 seat Nippert Stadium. UT was 4-7, and got 75,000 to watch Kentucky. The dude has to love that.

On What Tennessee will look like on the field:

Offensively, we are going to be a team that takes care of the football. We are going to run a no-huddle offense. I don’t like to use the term “spread,” because I think that the word “finesse” is associated with that…”We are going to be a physical style of offense and be a pro-style offense…”Defensively, we are going to be a team that is going to swarm to the football and causes turnovers. We’ll be a team that doesn’t beat itself…”We’ll do some different things. It’s building a foundation to where everybody speaks the same language, from the training room, to the eating table to our strength and conditioning to our academic settings. It’s one program and we’ll be bought into one goal. That breeds success.”

It will be interesting to see what players stay next year, and how Jones’ style affects the current roster. Here’s looking at you: Tyler Bray, Justin Hunter, Cordarrelle Patterson, and Juwuan James.

On Recruiting:

I’ve worked for a lot of great head coaches and with every coach I’ve come in contact with, if you can recruit, you can recruit. It doesn’t matter what school you come from or where in the country… recruiting is selling. Recruiting is a people business so I want the best teachers and best recruiters no matter where we have to go to get them. I do think it’s important that we have some coaches that know the lay of the land, but I really think if you’re a great recruiter, you can recruit anywhere because it’s all relationship based.

I agree with this. I think the Knoxville media puts too much emphasis on this myself. This is not the 1880s, it’s not a different country.

On Being UT’s third (or 4th) choice:

I think I was my wife’s third choice.

Great answer. Shoot, we’ve all applied for jobs before, and some of us have even prayed that the guy in front of us turns it down. All most people want is a good chance.

On His Style with Coordinators.

I have an offensive background so I’ll sit more in the offensive meetings, but I’m a CEO. I’m going to make sure we’re all on the same page – offensive, defense and special teams – but also I’m hiring a staff to do their jobs. I’m not a micro-manager. I want to know everything. You’ll see me at practice and it will be high-energy. I’m going to be involved in all three phases, but I’m not a micro-manager. I’m going to assemble the best staff in America and I’m going to let them coach.

From what I can gather, this is the opposite of Dooley

On When he Decided to Pull the Trigger

We’ve all talked about player-coach relationships and change is hard so that’s what I told our current football team. Change is unsettling, but it’s how you embrace the change. I’ve invested three hard years into there and Whit Babcock is a very close friend of mine so it’s hard to say goodbye. Again, I’m standing up here today because of the success of our players back to Cincinnati. Just like a quarterback – I think sometimes coaches get too much praise when they win and too much blame when they lose. We have a phrase that we say, `Praise and blame it’s all the same.’ But I’m standing up here because of our team at Cincinnati and because they were successful. It’s difficult but when you walk in here and you meet your new team and the goals, you’re just intoxicated by the success here. You can see all the great players. We’re standing in the Peyton Manning Locker Room… The greatest quarterback of all time. I’m excited to get going and I feel a sense of energy here and commitment.

Well, I was underwhelmed by the process, but I am happy with the result.

Here is a good indication that he is not Dooley:

YouTube – Videos from this email

I don’t have a great handle on how good of a read of how great of a recruiter Jones is. However the reaction from the national media has been largely positive.

The first edition of Butchisms will come after today’s 2:30 presser.

The Good

An SEC win and the avoidance of one of my favorite random college football facts. Tennessee and Ohio State are the only FBS schools to never have an eight loss season. Not Alabama, not Michigan, not Texas, not Notre Dame. Just UT and OSU.

Tennessee’s defense was improved against the Wildcats. They only gave up 17 points, and they had some critical  4th down stops. The season ended on a positive note for the defense.

It was a nice way for the seniors to go out on top. If you read this blog last year, you know I had no love for Zach Rogers. He really stepped his game up this year. I appreciated him and those other seniors giving it their all for Tennessee #VFL.

The Bad:

The fact that the game was essentially meaningless, but that’s over now. Hopefully we won’t be writing about back-to-back bowl-less years for a long long time.

The Ugly

That we won’t get to see Tyler Bray, Justin Hunter and Cordarrelle Patterson again this season.  What a wasted offensive explosion. The Vols averaged 37 points per game, they were fun to watch. I have no inside information, but my gut says we have seen the end of at least two of them in orange and white.   One of the new coaches first orders of business will be to talk to these three and Juwuan James to see if they would stay. Hunter said as much in his post-game remarks on Saturday. Only thing left to do now is wait.

On Derek Dooley

Thank you for showing up on short notice. As you are well aware by now, I have made a decision relative to the leadership of our football program. Derek and I visited at length very early this morning. I want to say because it is factual nature that I have really enjoyed the 13 months that I have worked with Derek. We have an open honest and respectful relationship and all of our conversations have reflected that as this season has progressed and it was no different his morning…I told Derek that we were going to move in a different direction with new leadership for our football program. He handled as you would expect. He handles it in a a mature manner, in a respectful and appreciative manner as far as him being the head football coach at the University of Tennessee for the past three years. It meant a lot to him. I will tell you while the results, which are very important are not what he wanted, now what the team wanted, not what our fan base wanted, Derek Dooley did indeed improve this program. There is no question about that. He inherited a very, very, difficult environment. One that I am familiar with having been here these 13 months. Quite honestly he was given a pretty short stick to take into that battle. Given those facts, he did a good job in a lot of areas in putting a solid foundation under our football program…As I told our football team and our staff, this team was close to having a very good season. I admired the fact that they never came unglued so to speak. They never pointed fingers or said this was your fault, my fault. They showed maturity through a very disappointing football season in terms of excruciating losses in October. I let them know that I did admire that. It was a tough morning. The one thing people forget is, yes coaches are paid well and are compensated well and they do know what the expectations are when they enter the profession, but they are human beings with spouses and kids. It’s tough. Today is a tough day for that staff and our football team. We will now move forward in our search process with the goal of securing the best coach we possibly can to come and lead the football program at Tennessee. You have heard me say this before. This is a great place, a tremendous place. We have tradition, we have history, we have a brand that is still meaningful. But, we have a long way to go to get back to where we need to be. You can’t put all of that on coach, I don’t care if his name is Vince Lombardi or Derek Dooley. We have an obligation as an administration to give our coaches the resources they need, the support they need, intrinsically and extrinsically to back to where we want to be. This will be a collective effort from a lot of people to have us take our rightful place in the Southeastern Conference and beyond.

A lot going on here that I like. One, Hart expect UT to be a top-notch SEC program, and he is willing to go whatever lengths are necessary to get there. You have to love that, and you have to think that any potential coaching candidate will like that as well. Secondly this is not all on Dooley. It’s on Mike Hamilton, Jimmy Cheek, Phil Fulmer, and Lane Kiffin as well.

On Dooley part 2:

His concern was for the players, Derek was not at all bitter, he was not concerned about himself in that regard. He talked at length about his concern and how difficult that might be for the players and it might take away their focus on the final game of the season and in particularly the seniors. His concern was the players and not himself…I don’t know that either one of us slept more than an hour. It was a late night when we got back. We met early this morning and part of the reason was to talk about the tv show. He wanted to do it and he said he could handle it. It was an obligation and he should follow through with it. We talked about those things in great detail this morning.

Classy move by Dooley. Have to respect the guy there. That could not have been an easy Derek Dooley show to do.

On The Financial Status of the Athletic Department:

We are not going to let that be a detriment to securing the best coach we can. I have talked to the Chancellor at length about that. We have a 1.9 million dollar reserve which in the SEC is unheard of. We complete against people who have reserves of about 50-100 million dollars. We are in a tough position financially. The Chancellor doesn’t want us to be at a competitive disadvantage of any nature whether it be financial, or academic or in any other arena where we are trying to compete and get back into the top of that pyramid. We are in a tenuous position, at a crossroads with our athletics program. But, we have people who understand that and are committed to helping us overcome those obstacles. That won’t be a detriment, is it a concern? Yes it is a concern.

Let’s just focus on that first sentence. I am not going to pretend I understand the ins and outs of the reserves, and what it takes to get it back where it needs to be. Hart seems concerned but not worried. So I am going to stick with that.

On Program Stability:

First of all, as you well know this will be our fourth football coach in six years. This is not what I wanted and I don’t think this what we really needed relative to stability versus more transition. We have had 12 presidents since the year 2000. We now have four football coaches in six years. We need stability. But we need to find stability through a process that we are engaged in now. We have challenges, we have some competitive disadvantages that have been identified, that everyone in our campus has been working to overcome, together. We have some academic competitive disadvantages that we are eliminating. These are all historical in nature. This has been the case for some time, we are now beginning to address and rectify some of those disadvantages. That are real in nature…The coaches will know what goes on, they will do their homework just as we will do our homework. My pitch to them is that this is a great place, an attractive place to come and be the head football coach at the University of Tennessee and be the person responsible for providing the leadership that takes us back up the hillside.

I am 34. I was born during the Johnny Majors tenure and witnessed the Fulmer era. It is almost unfathomable to hear fourth coach in six years.

On Fan Passion:

I think the passion of our fans is one of our greatest assets and sometimes that can be displayed in a variety of ways. We are blessed with a passionate fan base. Derek knows that and has said so as well. Derek Dooley is a good person, he is. He is a good husband, good father, a good person and he loves Tennessee. He did a lot of things to help set a foundation. What people, is Saturdays. And we had a lot of Saturdays that had a lot of things that you couldn’t put your arms around and hug in terms of performance levels. That is part of profession that we are in. Derek knows that. I have never been offended by that, you have heard me say this many times. I would hate to work somewhere where there was no passion, where there was apathy, where people didn’t care what the product looked like or whether we were having success or not. I don’t want to be a part of that program. That is not who we are at Tennessee.

This is certainly not a low stress job people will be interviewing for. How long of a contract will the next guy even get? Fair question, let’s let Dave answer that.

On Contract Length:

I think the new coach is going to ask me that question early on in our conversation. Four coaches in six years, I would ask it. Is three years enough? I think that is a fair question. I think you have to look at the results. Derek would be the first one to tell you.

On the 2013 Recruiting Class:

We talked at length about that today with the coaching staff. We talked about managing the recruiting and this is relatively typical in these types of transitions. Those coaches are going to continue to work as you would expect. Darin Hinshaw is our recruiting coordinator, he will work with Jay Graham and some others to spearhead. Those two will spearhead that effort. I talked to the team at length about their academic responsibilities because we are not in the bowl. We had an issue a year ago and we don’t want a repeat of that. We talked about things that are very important as we close out academic semester, as we get into recruiting. We can go on the road Sunday. We talked about all of those things. I will have a chance as the week progresses to meet with our coaches one-on-one to continue those conversations in more depth.

No class is worth a great coach. So if we lose people. (And we’ve already lost Kameron Miles), that’s just the way it is this year. Hopefully the next guy can nail it down.

On the Importance of the Football Coach:

I think any leadership position hire is critically important. Because of the visibility, it makes it extremely important. Your head football coach is the face of the program, just like the head basketball coach and in our case the head women’s basketball coach. The Lady Vols basketball coach is very important. Not only in our community, but state. So it is very, very important.

The new guy will be the most famous guy in Tennessee. It’s a huge hire for Hart.

On the new Candidate Having Previous Coaching Experience:

Critically important. I think it is very difficult to come into the Southeaster Conference without that being present. This league, it is a different world. We are at the end of the football season and we still have five teams in the top 10 in the country. I won’t be surprised to see one or two SEC in the national championship game again. This is the ultimate challenge that competitors embrace for a football coach. If you are a competitor and you want to prove your worth, come to the Southeastern Conference and Tennessee.

Well that would assume that Kirby Smart and Greg Roman are out.

On The Hiring Time Frame:

I wouldn’t put a time frame on it, because of variables I mentioned earlier. I think it is more important to get right, the best person that we can possibly attract. I don’t think the landscape plays into that in every case...I think when you have done it several times you know how to do it and how to go about that process… I think every athletics director in America and every one that I know, you have a list of people. That list changes because you don’t know when you will be in a coaching search. Heaven forbid, it could be a tragedy. You don’t know what could happen. How many of those names at the end of the day will get traction, that remains to be seen. I have not begun that and I will begin that in earnest now. I think there is a right and wrong way to do everything in life. This is how I have always done it. I have contacted no one, back channeled no one, I think that is fair to current head coach. Do I have a plan, I do. Those conversations have not begun…I think a lot of in the past, a lot of hires of this nature occur sometime in the month of December. Very candidly, a lot of those coaches will be in New York City for the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame. Some will continue to play into deep into the postseason. December critical month.

Hopefully a new football coach for Christmas Vol Fans!

The List According to the Knoxville News Sentinel.

John Gruden (I’ll believe it when I see him sitting next to Dave Hart addressing the press)

Jimbo Fisher (Ditto)

David Cutcliffe (Certainly intriguing, but I don’t know if this is the best long-term option for the program)

Charlie Strong (My personal preference)

Al Golden (This would be an under-whelming hire to me)

Mike Gundy (I can’t see why he leaves his alma-mater)

Greg Roman (49ers OC and Stanford’s OC under Jim Harbaugh. He recruited Andrew Luck to Palo, Alto which is about all I know of him, but that’s a nice ace in the hole.)

On Mizzou:

I will really sum up on the Missouri game is we were sitting there with 4:43 to go in the game and our defense [to that point] had 59 plays, 295 yards, 14 points and two turnovers. At that point, that is about as good a defensive game that you can play. Then we gave up three plays there on the last drive, two on fourth down, and we really struggled in overtime to slow them down. Another tough, disappointing loss, that is four in this league where it came down really to the last possession. For both squads, all three units had a chance to impact the game and we didn’t get it done so we move on to Vandy.

Oh boy. It’s telling that giving up 295 yards (which is good) is as good as UT can do. I don’t fundamentally disagree with this statement, but it sure is sad that it’s true.

On Not Attempting to Win the Game in Regulation:

Everybody is making a huge deal about that. I answered it after the game and I don’t feel any differently. We were struggling on offense. The last four possessions we didn’t execute well, we weren’t looking good and when we went out there we were going out there to win the game. That is what our philosophy was and the first play we screw up, get the ball, and then the second play we screw up the execution. I think there were about 35 seconds and we had a third and 10. I just didn’t have confidence that we were going to get it and then, all of a sudden, you put the best player on their whole team out on the field to change the game and I didn’t want to do that. I felt like we could beat them in overtime. We were at home and I felt like our offense, over the course of time we performed better than their offense.

Hindsight is definitely 20-20. However, if the Vols tried once more and punted. Aren’t you willing to take that chance? It seems like a super-conservative decision especially considering how terrible the defense looked in the four minutes of football immediately prior to this.

On Curt Maggitt:

He is out for the year with a torn ACL. That was a real blow and hurt us that last drive. He was doing a great job of copping the quarterback the whole game and that hurt us there on a couple of things toward the stretch.

This stinks for Curt. The hope now is that he is 100% on August 31st 2013. Hopefully he is. He is one of our better defenders.

On his Immediate Future:

I didn’t ask him (Dave Hart) that but I did ask him a lot of things. We talked very frankly about it. He told me he had not made a decision if we go 6-6, despite what all the reports are. Either the sources are wrong or Dave wasn’t being forthright with me and I have no reason to think Dave is not being forthright with me. He is an honest man, he has always been honest with me and I have appreciated how he has handled everything about this. I really have.

This is a virtually impossible question for the guy to answer. What do you want him to say? “I talked to Dave, and I am canned ASAP”.? I realize the reporter has the right/responsibility to answer, but Dooley can’t answer that in good faith.

On Player’s Attitudes:

I think the irony in all this is that we beat up the young kids so bad on their behavior all the time and they are the ones handling all of this better than anybody. There is no negativity on the team, there are no mean-spirited comments, there is no gossip, so I am proud of them for doing that. We probably all ought to learn from them a little bit.

I’ve never been in that locker-room, but what I can reasonably explain is that at least they have a task to focus on, and (probably) their competitive spirit as athletes is going to take over and want to beat the crap out of Vanderbilt. How many of you have wanted badly to win a pick-up basketball game that didn’t matter? That’s how the team probably feels.

On His Family:

The hardest thing is when they are seeing things that are contrary to what their dad is telling them. That’s where it gets a little tough, but that is part of the profession. We have to deal with it. That’s how it is…I can’t make that decision. I can give you compelling arguments why I should and there are plenty of compelling arguments about why I shouldn’t. It’s not going to be your decision, it’s not going to be a bunch of these source’s decisions, it is Dave [Hart] and the chancellor. It is their decision and I can’t control what they think. We’ve had a lot of good dialogue. I think he has a good handle on how I do things in our program, where we are and why we are not getting the results we want, so you move on and live with it.

This must be a very difficult time in the Dooley house. Sure, his kids won’t go hungry, but it still has to be emotionally challenging for all of them.

On the Continuing Inadequacy of the UT Defense:

It was very effective for three quarters, up to four minutes to go in the game. Then we didn’t execute very well down the stretch. I was really pleased and I was proud of the kids, they played their tails off. They did and it is unfortunate it ended the way it ended. It really is. That’s what hurts you is the way you lose it…I think it helped Sal [Sunseri], he called a great game. I think it helped the other coaches, I think we did a good job on the sideline. I thought everything was positive but we just didn’t finish it and that is what we have to learn how to do. We are going to keep on the same course…We lost a couple of guys there late, we lost LaDarrell [McNeil] and we lost Curt [Maggitt] on that scramble. We got hurt on fourth down on just the play getting extended a little bit longer than it had been earlier in the game. Then eventually our zones that we had been running the whole game, there were some openings in there. Same thing in the overtime.

I am at a loss for words at how dreadful this defense is.

On Vandy:

We are playing a little different team. They play a lot of 21 and two-back pro-style, a lot of shifts and motions so it is going to be a little challenge. We have to figure out what we are going to do…They have done a great job. I guess it is good for the rivalry, it makes better games, but they are doing a good job. They did a good job before James [Franklin] got there, they did a really nice job recruiting and he has done a nice job of bringing some really good energy to the program. They are playing with a lot of confidence… I don’t think Vanderbilt needs a lot of motivation to come and whip us. I am sure they have plenty of motivation that they don’t need that. I can’t take that back.

For the first time in my life, and probably for the first time in the lives of all but the oldest Tennessee fans. UT is not going to sell out their ticket allotment in Nashville, AND, they aren’t going to be favored. Not only that, the Vols should not be favored. This is truly an awkward time for Volunteer football. Hopefully this ship gets righted soon.

On Tyler Bray:

I have just seen him prepare and practice with a little more focus every day. A little more consistency. I don’t think it is a significant change in what he is doing, I think it is part of his growth and process. Every quarterback goes on that journey and everybody moves at a different pace and everybody starts making some big jumps at different times in their career. He has made a big jump in the last few weeks and I hope he can keep doing that…He would go for it if it was 4th and 15 on the minus 10 and we are up 21. He just wants to go score points and that is okay. I just say, `Would you hush? Go do it on third down if you want to go for it. ‘ That is what I tell him. That is what I told him at the end of the game. `You had two chances and you screwed them up. Don’t get mad at me.’ Sometimes he isn’t doing what you guys are thinking that he is doing. He is screaming because he wants to do something. It is not adversarial. The one time he punted he ball and he didn’t get the signal we were going for it. Sometimes you have those miscommunications. It is not him getting upset with us. I guess we have to work on that. I didn’t know that was a big issue out there. He is not showing up the coaches, but he would like to call the plays.

Bray certainly has that gun-slinger mentality. Love him or hate him, he hasn’t been the reason for Tennessee’s struggles this season. He may not be a Peyton Manning in the locker-room. But few people are.

On the Fake Field Goal

Every week you go in with some fakes on all the phases depending on how they line up. It doesn’t mean you are going to get them but it means you are going to have a better chance of getting it if they line up otherwise. They lined up how we thought they would line up and we ran it. I didn’t think that was a risky call like you guys. We were going to kick it if they lined up differently.

Loved Tyler Drummer on that play. The brightest spot of the second half for me.

The Good:

Oh my, is this offense explosive. This team can score in buckets. They are averaging nearly 38 points a game. It’s so good, and so fun to watch. I’ve been down on Tyler Bray at times this year. I’ve also been down a few times on Justin Hunter. Early in the season I was down on the offensive line, but those gentlemen are now the core of this team. I really can’t find much to gripe with on offense. They did turn the ball over once, but that kind of stuff happens.  It didn’t cost UT this game. The offense boasts all kinds of play-makers. Cordarrelle Patterson is a human highlight real. Marlin Lane is turning into a tough between-the-tackles guy. They are so much fun to watch. Also, even though it should never have come to that, Tyler Drummer’s touchdown was super awesome.

Also, just so I am not a broken record. In the first half the Tennessee defense played well. There I said it. It wasn’t awful.

The Bad:

Tennessee’s defense from literally the first play of the third quarter until the end of the game. Missouri’s offense has been mediocre at best during SEC play, and sometimes downright dismal. In the second half James Franklin looked like a different quarterback than the guy who was getting beaten up by Bama, and Georgia.

The Ugly:

The inexplicable decision to not attempt to score at the end of regulation, and the fact that it came down to that. So ugly.