How Butch Jones Rebuilt the Tennessee Football Program
"We were sick. We were ill."
Butch Jones understands he took over a beleaguered program when he replaced Derek Dooley prior to the 2013 season.
The Vols—once perennial contenders for the SEC East title—hadn't been to a bowl game since 2010 and hadn't been to the SEC Championship Game since losing to LSU in Atlanta in 2007.
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Things have changed a bit.
No. 23 Tennessee will host 19th-ranked Oklahoma on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium in one of the biggest early-season battles of the season. It's also the biggest game of third-year head coach Butch Jones' career on Rocky Top and the biggest game for the Tennessee program since that loss to LSU.
How did Jones build the program back to a point where it's playing meaningful games on the national stage again?
Brick by Brick
You've heard the Tennessee recruiting philosophy of building the program "brick by brick" by now, but what does it mean? Where does it come from?
"I was looking out my window my first year and watched people outside lay the bricks of the walkway," Jones told Bleacher Report. "Every great structure or organization has a foundation, and people are the foundation. I was watching them lay the bricks, and the diligence that it took to lay the bricks, and if one brick was out of place or missing, they weren't going to have a solid foundation and it wouldn't look right."
That foundation has been laid through the efforts of Jones and his staff to not only recruit players who want to be part of that process early on, but by making sure veterans buy into the process and are on board with a slow climb rather than a gigantic leap.
"I'll forever be indebted to 'Team 117' and 'Team 118,'" Jones said of his first two teams on Rocky Top. "I thought they laid that foundation. It's that affinity for what you represent on a daily basis."
It has worked.
Tennessee has reeled in top-10 classes in each of the last two seasons, including 2015's fourth-ranked class that features 16 4-plus-star recruits.
"Construction is never complete," Jones said.
He's right.
The focus on consistently building this program from the ground up is constantly evolving and resonates with players in the upcoming recruiting class as well.
"The brick-by-brick thing, he says that it's hard to break a foundation—especially one that's made out of bricks," said Mecole Hardman, an uncommitted 5-star athlete in the Class of 2016 who's considering Tennessee among other SEC powers. "He's been trying to build Tennessee back to where it was, and recruits have definitely started paying attention to it."
Power of Position
"We talk in our football program about power of position and being nine strong," Jones said. "We want to be nine-position-groups strong. We want to be in a position with our football program where we are 9-for-9 and have the competitive depth across the board."
That's easier said than done.
It's no secret that Jones inherited a mess from Dooley, particularly in the trenches.
Dooley's last class on Rocky Top didn't contain a single offensive lineman, and Jones was only able to sign three in his first recruiting class, which signed on the dotted line just two months after Jones got the job.
Fixing the offensive line and solidifying the defensive line were his priorities from the get-go.
"Those are developmental positions," Jones said. "Those are positions that take years to develop, from a mentality and mindset to the strength and conditioning area. When you look at playing in the SEC, it's a line-of-scrimmage league."
It's a developmental position, and now Jones is in the portion of the construction process where his primary focus is reinforcing that foundation with the quality depth he needs to compete in the SEC.
The Vols reeled in 5-star defensive lineman Kahlil McKenzie and 4-star defensive linemen Shy Tuttle, Drew Richmond and Jack Jones in the most recent class.
Tuttle and McKenzie are expected to be big parts of the defensive puzzle this year—especially with tackle Danny O'Brien suspended indefinitely. Jack Jones was pressed into action early due to the injury to guard Marcus Jackson and has impressed his head coach this year.
"I love Jack Jones," Butch Jones said on the SEC coaches teleconference on Wednesday. "He's a great young man with great competitive character, and it's really important to him. He was set back in training camp while challenging for a starting position, and I can see the progress he's made each and every day."
The Vols had to replace their entire offensive and defensive lines prior to the 2014 season, and only now has the line of scrimmage reached a point where the program should be contending for division titles.
Player's Coach
Jones isn't just the coach to his players. He's a friend, mentor and leader.
A recruiting visit with Jones isn't the standard tour and typical sales pitch that prospects find at most schools. Players get to know the staff on a personal level.
"He's a player's coach. There aren't too many player's coaches out there," Hardman said. "He connects to players really well. You can ask him about anything. He's always writing stuff down and interacting with me. He's just real and can relate to us. That's what's different about him."
Specifically, Jones can become one of the boys when he needs to be.
"He's just like one of your boys who you can chill with," Hardman said. "When you go up there—say you want to shoot basketball—he'll go shoot with you. He can be serious and funny all together."
A welcoming atmosphere is a direct 180 from what went on under the old regime, according to former Vol Troy Fleming (via Stephen Hargis of the Chattanooga Times Free Press).
"With Coach Jones, when you walk into the facility now it's like you never left," Fleming said. "The guys who have worked around the program for years are at ease now, which tells you things are good again. The biggest thing about Coach Jones is he actually does his job. Unlike that guy we call 'Derek Doolittle,' who really did very little."
Culture Change
"We have individuals who love the 'power of the T,' not just the 'power T' itself."
Jones inherited a program that was in shambles.
In addition to the personnel issues, Tennessee had a four-year academic progress rate (APR) of 924 in 2011-2012, according to NCAA.org, and a 909 for that school year itself. That's just 24 points above a threshold (900) that would have rendered them ineligible for a bowl game in Jones' first season and six points below where the threshold adjusted to (930) the following season, per KnoxBlog.com.
Things have changed.
The Vols had a 945 four-year APR in 2013-2014, according to NCAA.org, and the program's overall grade point average (GPA) has improved tremendously.
"When we came here, I believe that we had 12 individuals with a 3.0 GPA or above," Jones said. "Now, this past semester, we had 52. We were at a 2.2 or 2.3 team GPA, now we are at a 2.81. That all comes with time, and anything worthwhile that's going to be on solid ground with the foundation that we want takes time to build."
Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information is courtesy of 247Sports. Statistics are courtesy of cfbstats.com.
Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report, as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83. Follow Barrett on Twitter @BarrettSallee.
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