I think at best he's a 7 who gets us back to 9 wins a year. That would fix the superficial problems, but not the huge underlying problem.
True but as of now he is ahead. He may of landed a few more as well. All in all there is no doubt we just upgraded exponentially over Dooley.
The reason he is ahead this year is because Louisville has about 14 open scholarships. If you want to make the claim that Butch Jones is a good recruiter, there are reasons I may find it plausible. But there's no sane metric in which he's been outrecruiting Strong.
Everyone in the big east has little boy talent. It is relevant to you conference. There are no elite big east teams.
I don't think fans really think that Jones is that bad of a coach. Most fans made up their mind they won't like the coach no matter who it is once Gruden backed out.
That's called momentum. Look at Dan Enos, who followed Jones at CMU. He is smoking Butch Jones' recruiting at CMU - who in turn improved upon Kelly's. The same thing happened at Cincinnati. All you are seeing with Jones recruiting better than Kelly is an artifact of programs on the rise and momentum carrying forward.
That's the one polarizing talking point you just can't overlook. No matter how the AD spins this we just fired possibly the worst coach of our history and replaced him with the guy he got his signature win against. Granted, it's not always that black and white.
No he likely will not mention it. But if brought up he will sell the fact Tennessee had 2 first round caliber wrs. And several NFL players on a there squad. He had one that I know of. And used him well.
Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate Jones is more personable and may be a better recruiter for that reason. But I think your explanation pretty much accounts for the whole difference between Kelly and Jones' recruiting. There aren't really any hard facts that say Jones is going to be an ace recruiter. There may be reasons to think it, but I don't think the recruiting rankings tell us much
That's a worthless argument. Of course he is an upgrade over Dooley. What employed BCS coach isn't*? Incremental upgrade is not the way a program like Tennessee has to improve. It's a joke. *may be slight hyperbole
Listen I am pissed at Hart and UT. But Jones has nothing to do with that. He seems like a solid coach. His record supports that.
It is not a nominal improvement. He is one of the better coaches around. Best? No probably not. But he is a better coach then Kiffin Dooley and Fulmer post NC. He s the best HC we have seen in awhile.
Wait. Didn't Sergeant Carter spend a good portion of his press conference bragging about how many guys of his 2011 team are on NFL rosters?
I don't think of Kelly as an ace recruiter - particularly in the south, nor is Jones. That is why Tennessee didn't hire Kelly in 2008, IMO.
I'm not a bit mad at Jones. I said earlier that his statements to this point reminded me of my middle school coach's psycho-babble which makes him full of shit to me.
When you compare recruiting classes at Louisville, Cincinnati to any SEC school, you are comparing apples to oranges. I would bet that Urban Meyer had better recruiting classes at Fl. than he did at Utah. Is Nick Saban signing the same type of player at Alabama that he signed at Mich. st? I don't know if Jones can get the elite recruits that is needed to win in the SEC or not. I do know that he recruited well enough to win at his other job. But the SEC is a different animal. Only time will tell
