When Dave Hart hired Butch Jones as Tennessee football’s new head coach after the 2012 season, Vols fans showed little enthusiasm. Hardly anybody mentioned him, and nobody had him at the top of their list.
The book out on him was that he inherits success Brian Kelly built. After all, Kelly turned Central Michigan into a MAC power, and Jones just continued it.
Then Kelly went undefeated at Cincinnati, and Jones followed that with a 4-8 season before going 10-3 and 9-3 the next two years.
So Jones had no track record of turning around a program, and that’s what a major school like Tennessee needed.