Many feel that Tennessee head football coach Butch Jones is on the hot seat heading into the 2017 season, with some outright wondering how many wins it will take for Jones to stay on as head coach.
It appears that new Volunteers athletic director John Currie wants to take some of that heat off of Jones, which is understandable to say the least. However, it did so with one of the oddest quotes we will probably see from an athletic director all year.
Via 247Sports:
"As an athletics director, I think you've got be really careful about ever evaluating things based upon specifics records or things that can be kind of arbitrary," Currie said. "That's a funny-looking ball, and it bounces lots of different directions. What I'm always looking at is, 'What's the overall state of our program, with the organization, the enthusiasm, the momentum?'
"If you look at those three things, we're right at the top."
Not wanting to make rash decision about a coach's future based on record alone? That's a smart decision.
Saying that a team's record is arbitrary, and then comparing it to things like "enthusiasm" and "momentum" that are actually arbitrary is... bizarre to say the least.
Nonetheless, it does appear that Jones has some real backing from the new athletic director, and that should bode well for him and the Volunteers for the upcoming season. One of the worst things an athletic department can do is put their coach publicly on the hot seat before the season — looking at you Texas and Texas A&M — because that never seems to end well and it puts the entire program in a rough spot in recruiting and perception for the whole year.
