KNOXVILLE — Tennessee (2-2, 2-2 SEC) will continue its 10-game SEC-only 2020 season today against No. 2 Alabama (4-0, 4-0 SEC).
The Vols and Crimson Tide will kick off at 3:30 p.m. EDT at Neyland Stadium. The contest will be televised by CBS.
As Alabama arrived at Neyland Stadium for the contest, former Tennessee head coach and current Alabama special assistant to the head coach took in Shields-Watkins Field during pregame.
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Jones had been an analyst for the Crimson Tide during the 2018 and 2019 seasons, working closely with six-time national championship head coach Nick Saban. He moved into the role of special assistant to the head coach in 2020.
Butch Jones can carry Alabama ‘experience’ forward to lead another program.
Tennessee and Alabama will renew its rivalry Saturday at Neyland Stadium.
The matchup will be former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones’ eighth contest in the series – five for the Vols (2013-17) and third with Alabama (2018-20).
Jones has been an analyst for the Crimson Tide during the 2018 and 2019 seasons, working closely with six-time national championship head coach Nick Saban. He has since moved into the role of being a Special Assistant to the Head Coach in 2020.
In 2018, Craig Kuligowski served as associate head coach and oversaw the defensive line for Alabama.
Oct 20, 2018; Knoxville, TN, USA; Alabama Crimson Tide associate head coach and defensive line coach Craig Kuligowski watches warmups before a game against the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bryan Lynn-USA TODAY Sports
Kuligowski played at Toledo and Saban was his head coach in 1990. He went on to coach under Gary Pinkel for 25 years at Toledo and Missouri.
While coaching in the Mid-American Conference, Kuligowski crossed paths with Jones who was an assistant at Central Michigan. He later, again, competed against Jones while at Missouri in the SEC East.
“We did kind of cross paths there, but obviously, we got to know each other a lot better working together at Alabama,” Kuligowski said on the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days” of his time with Jones.
Butch Jones. Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Kuligowski discussed Jones’ desire to become a head coach again as he continues to work alongside Saban.
“I think he deserves another chance,” Kuligowski said of Jones. “I think he did a really good job at just about every place that he has been. It’s a tough business, it’s college football. It’s inevitable that you are going to be fired at one point or another, there’s two kinds of college coaches – those that have been fired and those who will be fired.
“Even Coach Saban was fired way back when. It does happen in this business. Certainly it has nothing to do with his ability to be a great coach, and everything is a learning experience – he should be able to carry that forward and lead another program successfully.”
The entire interview with Kuligowski can be listened to here or below.
Vols’ football history 2013-2017: Head coach Butch Jones
KNOXVILLE — University of Tennessee football is rich in tradition and Vols Wire will explore the program by examining each head coach’s tenure.
This installment will look back on the time that Butch Jones spent as head coach in Big Orange Country.
Coming from the University of Cincinnati, Jones and the Bearcats represented one of Derek Dooley’s 15 victories at Tennessee.
Dooley and the Vols trounced Jones’ Cincinnati squad, 45-23, on Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011.
Jones was tapped to replace Dooley, who won just four Southeastern Conference games during parts of three seasons.
Three of those league victories came in Dooley’s first season. During his time at UT, Dooley beat Vanderbilt twice, Kentucky and Ole Miss.
In Jones’ first year in Knoxville, the Vols went 5-7, but nabbed a signature league victory over South Carolina and Steve Spurrier.
In 2014, the Vols went 7-6 and won the TaxSlayer Bowl over Iowa.
Then, it looked as though the Vols had turned the corner, posting back-to-back 9-4 campaigns in 2015 and 2016.
The Big Orange also closed those seasons with bowl victories.
Jones was 3-0 in postseason games and had victories over Florida, Georgia and the Gamecocks.
But in 2017, things went horribly wrong and Jones was dismissed as head coach with the Volunteers holding a 4-6 record, including an 0-6 mark in the SEC.
Brady Hoke was then appointed interim head coach for the final two games of the season, losses to LSU and Vanderbilt.
Butch Jones’ impact of ‘new wave’ to install plays being implemented at Knoxville Catholic.
KNOXVILLE — A new wave of how to install plays is taking place at Alabama and will begin soon at Catholic High School in Knoxville.
The new wave consists of installing a play that is displayed on a jumbotron where players can watch it in real time at practice.
On the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days,” Catholic head coach Steve Matthews discussed how he intends to implement plays being installed with the help of the Fighting Irish’s jumbotron.
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Catholic’s jumbotron was donated by former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones and his family. Jones enters his third season as an analyst at Alabama in 2020.
“That was great by Butch and his family to get that scoreboard for us and jumbotron,” Matthews said. “He was watching us install and we were doing it the old-fashioned way of me lining everyone up. He called me over and said ‘Coach at Alabama, they install the play and then they put it up on the jumbotron where the guys can actually watch it’.
“These kids in this generation are visual learners. I am going to implement that this year because of the jumbotron he got us. I can talk about the play, install the play, then have my guys look at the screen and show it to them right on the field. He brought that up as one of the things Alabama does and I thought it was great.”
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
“Tennessee Two-A-Days” is co-hosted by USA Academy head coach Rush Propst. Propst is also on board of the new wave of how to install plays in real time the way Alabama does.
“That is sort of the new wave in how to install,” Propst said of using a jumbotron to teach plays. “For me going forward, and having different ideas on how kids are in the 2020-21 campaign, how do they absorb the material and installs differently than they did five years ago.”
Propst won five state championships as the head coach at Hoover High School from 1999-2007. He had Jeremy Pruitt on staff from 2004-06. Propst then won two state championships and one national title at Colquitt County High School from 2008-18.
2019 was a season of reflection for Propst who was a defensive volunteer consultant at UAB. He plans to take many things that he has learned in the past year and implement them into his program going forward.
Propst discussed his time of reflection and learning in 2019 in comparison to Jones’ time at Alabama before he takes another head coaching position.
“Butch will land on his feet somewhere soon,” Propst said. “The good news for him, when you get fired, you can sit back and analyze your program and more of a slow mode because you have more time and no deadlines to meet. You are going around and you watch practices, study film, studying the way people are winning.
“I go back to the most impressive thing in my life was Eddie Robinson on the front row of a high school coach that was speaking and he was writing notes in a book. It was so impressive. I walked up to him and I said that you have been in this game a long time, what possibly could you have written down? He said you never stop learning in this game. So sitting out like Butch, and like I have done, and others have done, we always seem to come back stronger than we were when we left.”
Jones has also learned other elements of running a program during his time at Alabama that will help him going forward.
“He kept going on about how much that he had learned and is learning from Coach (Nick) Saban,” Matthews said of Jones. “He talked about the diet, the trainers, just how everything is done, and if he could do it again at Tennessee and everything that he could do different — and a lot of times it is just little things in the program. We talked about trainers, equipment managers, the strength coach and how they do things.”
Propst echoed Matthews discussing Jones evolving in preparation for his next head coaching position.
“It’s not just the X’s and O’s,” Propst said. “It’s how do we develop, how do we beat them better, how do we get them better medical care, how do we rehab differently, how do we practice differently, how do we install better.”
The entire interview with Matthews and Propst can be listened to here or below.
NASHVILLE – The American Football Coaches Association’s annual convention took place Jan. 12-14 at Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn.
Many coaches from across the nation and the world were present. Vols Wire was in attendance and discussed a wide range of topics with various coaches from career achievements, what lies ahead and talking concepts that included the Air Raid mesh with Arizona head coach Kevin Sumlin.
The event kicked off with Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck discussing his career and how he has risen from a junior wide receiver at Northern Illinois attending the AFCA Convention and knowing he wanted to coach. He has since climbed the coaching ranks, becoming a first-time head coach at Western Michigan (2013-15). There, his ability to build a program with its culture on display was at the forefront and he has since moved on to rebuild Minnesota’s program in the same capacity.
Current and former University of Tennessee coaches were present at the annual event. UT Director of Athletics Phillip Fulmer also made his presence.
The likes of former Tennessee assistant and current Duke head coach David Cutcliffe discussed his time at UT coaching under Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer.
“Coach Majors was the most organized practice guys,” Cutcliffe said.
The Duke head coach mentioned Majors made it a point for assistants to write down any mistakes they made and learn from it.
“The big thing with Phillip (Fulmer) was perseverance,” Cutcliffe continued regarding the pair of former UT head coaches. “He was the most consistent, perseverian person that I have ever been around.”
Cutlciffe also discussed with Vols Wire his openness to changing coaching tactics as the game does with rules, the transfer portal and other items such as offenses changing.
“I have learned more in the last five years than I have in the previous 15,” he said. “We all have to be prepared to do that in our line of work.”
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Recently departed Tennessee running backs coach David Johnson was also present at the AFCA Convention representing his new school, Florida State. Johnson discussed the amount of hard work he gave to Tennessee over the last two years with Vols Wire, simply saying that he worked hard during his time on Rocky Top.
Other coaches present at the Convention discussed UT’s coaching staff vacancy with Vols Wire. The common theme was that Jeremy Pruitt will take his time to fill the opening Johnson has left behind, much like he did when hiring offensive coordinator Jim Chaney last offseason. Johnson left UT on Jan. 4.
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones also took part in the 2020 AFCA Convention on its second day. Jones, who finished his second season as an analyst at Alabama in 2019, mentioned to Vols Wire that he eventually plans on getting back into a head coaching position again and is enjoying his time under Nick Saban.
One coach told Vols Wire that Jones will enhance what went well during his Tennessee tenure and will fix what could have been better when he becomes a head coach again.
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Former Tennessee defensive graduate assistant Jon Shalala arrived at UT during the summer of 2016 under Jones and defensive coordinator Bob Shoop. Shoop went to Mississippi State in the same capacity for the 2018-19 seasons.
Shalala remained at Tennessee throughout Pruitt’s first season as head coach in 2018. He then followed Shoop to Mississippi State and served as an assistant to inside linebackers throughout the 2019 season.
Mississippi State fired head coach Joe Moorhead following the Bulldogs’ bowl game and have since hired Mike Leach for his replacement. Shalala has experience handling transition when Tennessee went from Jones to Pruitt following the 2017 season. He remains currently within Mississippi State’s program under Leach and told Vols Wire that everything has been good so far during the transition.
Shalala filled in for linebackers coach Chris Marve during the Music City Bowl against Louisville. Marve left Mississippi State to join Mike Norvell’s Florida State coaching staff.
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
University of Tennessee at Martin running backs coach Sean Fisher was selected to the AFCA 2020 35 Under 35 Coaches Leadership Institute. Fisher previously discussed his coaching career on the show “Tennessee Two-A-Days” with newly hired USA Academy head coach Rush Propst. The interview can be listened to below.
Butch Jones has emerged as a strong candidate for the Colorado State job.
FT. COLLINS — Former University of Tennessee football head coach Butch Jones has emerged as a strong candidate for the vacant Colorado State job.
The Rams are replacing Mike Bobo, who stepped down recently and is poised to become the offensive coordinator at South Carolina.
Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire
Jones spent five seasons as the Volunteers’ coach and had three winning seasons and was victorious in all three bowl games he coached while at Tennessee.
Jones. who is now an offensive analyst at Alabama, guided Tennessee to back-to-back 9-4 records in 2015 and 2016 and led the Vols to bowl victories each year.
Things went south quickly for Jones in 2017. UT went 4-8 and winless in the Southeastern Conference. He was fired after 10 games. Brady Hoke was named interim coach.
Jones has an 84-54 career record in stops at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Tennessee.
