Randy Smith
As Tennessee begins spring football practice this week in Knoxville, it is becoming evident that the seat under Vols' head coach Butch Jones is as hot as any coach in the SEC, perhaps even the hottest. Losses in 2017 down the stretch to South Carolina and Vanderbilt cost the Big Orange the SEC East title that was predicted for them in the pre-season. Add that fact to this; gone are quarterback Joshua Dobbs who started 31 straight games for the Vols as well as Derek Barnett, Cam Sutton and Alvin Kamara and you get the picture.
The talent is there for the Volunteers to avoid going in the toilet completely, but will a 7-5 or even another 8-4 regular season mark save Butch Jones' job? Probably not and is this year's team going to be good enough to be 10-2 and really compete for that SEC East title that escaped them a year ago? Probably not.
So how does Butch approach the 2017 college football season? He has already gone on record as saying the five new additions to his coaching staff have quite a solid chemistry going, but the last time I checked, assistant coaches weren't allowed to play.
The chemistry among the players had better be really good when the Volunteers open against Georgia Tech in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend.
I'm not piling on Coach Jones, joining a lot of the other nay-sayers who are already hoping that new athletic director John Currie will make hiring a new head football coach a priority. I really hope that Butch will survive. I really liked him when he came to Tennessee with his "brick by brick" analogy about rebuilding the storied Tennessee football program. But he should have stopped right there. That bit about "five-star hearts" and "champions of life" makes me shake my head and wonder why did he have to say that? He successfully brought Tennessee football back to relevance in the SEC, but he has only brought them so far. It will take an SEC East title and a trip to the SEC Championship Game to calm down the growing feeling of unrest among Big Orange faithful.
Finding a replacement for Josh Dobbs is a really big challenge, but junior back up Quinton Dormady and redshirt freshman Jarrett Guarantano seem to be up for the task. Dormady has more experience but Guarantano seems be faster, and his overall ability has really impressed Tennessee coaches since he arrived. Whoever wins the starting job should be good enough to take the Vols to that next level. Tennessee should also have a solid offensive line and, with all the young players who saw a lot of unexpected playing time last year on defense due to injuries, the defense may be better than we all expect.
I'm certainly not ready to make any predictions on how the Vols will do this fall. There are encouraging signs that point to a pretty big year, but there are also troubling signs that point to a near disaster. In my humble opinion the less noise coming out of Knoxville this summer, the better. So Butch please stay away from the cheesy, corny sayings for now. Coach these "five-star hearts" and get them ready to play. And by the way, good luck. You're going to need it.
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Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for 30 years. He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga television for more than a quarter-century. In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith. They have five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.