That week before the UGA game, Jones looked like he was on the ropes. He was George Foreman in the Congo in the 7th round, going down to the canvas. He was being questioned not just about his coaching, but about whether or not he had hit a player during practice. Then, about half way through the week, it all went away. Swain backed off, Stokes backed off and ever since then TonyB has been in his "enjoy each game as they come" mode and has basically been absolutely cordial about Jones on his show and after the games. I cannot speak about State Run Radio, but they would be hanging on the coach's schlong even if we were 4-7 right now. What happened? Jones has done a freaking Lazarus this year. Did the message get out to these guys? Did they hear something that made them basically shut up? Because it wasn't the win against UGA that caused it, because it started before the game was played. Now I cannot even stand listening to Swain in the morning because he is using kiddie gloves and not questioning anything. Maybe I want there to be problems because of my own bias against Jones (which, as a matter of disclosure, I was still on the fence and leaning Jones' way until the OU game completely showed who and what he was). But if there is one thing that Jones is apparently good at, it is somehow staying one step ahead of the Reaper. Did something happen that week before the UGA game to get the wolves off of Jones' butt?
1. UGA started jawing personal shit at TN players from GA, particularly on the kickoff after they (UGA) housed the punt. 2. Dobbs went rogue at the LOS thereafter, for about 1/2 plays. 3. TN won. Pretty simple.
If I were Botch, and I know that this was pure dumb freaking luck, I would still gift about $100,000 to whomever makes the schedules in the SEC. He'll be able to pull off this masquerade at least one if not two more seasons. They will stumble, bumble, and lose at least two games between Florida/Bama/Georgia/other West team, and then they will look inspired and turn the corner when they kick the dog shit out of Kentucky, South Carolina, Missouri, Vanderbilt, and "might as well be an off week" creampuff #3. They will rally and win 5 or 6 straight to close out the year. They will land in some crappy ass bowl game against a weak Big 10 or ACC team and beat their ass also and everyone will say NEXT YEAR BABY. And then the following year they'll pull the same crap and we will be stuck in a bad parody of Groundhog Day for an unhealthy amount of time. At least I've basically quit giving a crap about UT football. My Saturday was very enjoyable watching some of the other big games, playing with my kids, doing a little house remodeling, etc. I watched the first half of the game on Saturday night and decided that I could spend my time better doing most anything than worrying about Butch Jones. It's really liberating. I can't ever quit watching completely because it's not in me. But I definitely can quit giving a damn and I have at least made it to that point.
"It's very, very critical to keep negativity away from our program. We're playing teams with players on scholarship and I'll never apologize for winning football games." - Lyle Butch Jones.
Watch Dobbs from midway through the 2nd quarter on. He finished runs by lowering the boom. He never really looked for a play either, he called his own number quite a but
Yeah. It shows how classy that family is that they don't allow the media to make a spectacle of that. Wish Tebow had done the same with his faith at times.
I didn't really get the feeling that anything really changed until UT won the game. And that appears to changed the perception for some.
I do think something weird happened to make Seth Stokes go from telling Jones in a press conference he had it "on good authority" that he'd had a physical confrontation with Mack Crowder to not even discussing the incident on his radio show.
