REASONS NOT TO FIRE BUTCH JONES

Head is perfectly square. That’s rare, and you might need it one day, like if the world depends on having one person whose perfectly cubical head fits a notch in an ancient lock that prevents the Dark Ones from entering this world through the gift shops of Cracker Barrels. This is how the Dark Ones will enter this world. Uncle Herschel’s Favorite, as it turns out, refers to global extradimensional destruction (and also baked apples.)

Beat Florida once. That happened. Tennessee as much recent success against Florida as Vanderbilt does. That’s a benchmark that definitely won’t enrage a Tennessee fan, and neither is mockingly thinking of how Houston Nutt said he’d taken Ole Miss to “back to back New Year’s Day bowls.” Has Butch Jones even done that? Don’t look it up, because he hasn’t, and if you’re a Tennessee fan you’ll just get mad thinking about how Houston Nutt topped your current coach in at least one metric.

Carbon neutral haircut. Is chewed to an even length by a goat at the UT Ag school; goat turns hair into milk; milk is turned into delicious goat cheese, and sold at University store under the “Bleu du Boo” moniker. You can’t fire a man when he’s an entire green economy.

Has made three bowl games in a row and won them all. Sorry, that’s an actual serious point to be made, along with performing with relative stability even in a sorry-ass division, recruiting pretty damn well, and providing a constant point of anger for Tennessee fans to fix their anger around on a weekly basis. There’s something to be said for rivalling “those damn squirrels eating my garden,” “That bitch who took my parking space at Lowe’s,” and “Obama” in the hearts of Vol fans, Butch Jones.

Good ratter. Let this man loose in a crawlspace and watch him work, he’s basically a 185 pound Dachshund in a badger warren.

SERIOUSLY we know you want to do this but: There’s something to be said for that kind of stability, Tennessee. Butch Jones probably knew this team would be ass. The average fan could have guessed that, too. There are programs who replace players like Josh Dobbs with ease, and then there are programs like those in the SEC East, programs so far off the football factory track that the loss of a single good player at a key position really does change the ceiling for the entire team.

That’s you, and that’s every program in the SEC East. The division is trash, and if the promise of being slightly less trash next year is there, you might want to take it because...well, slightly above trash par will still be better than the rest of it. Boy, is this bleak, but it’s also sort of true if you assume the worst about every other single program in the division.

Based on the evidence excluding Georgia so far, you might want to go ahead and assume the worst about every other single program in the division.

Also, who would you get? No seriously that’s a question, because it sure as hell isn’t Chip Kelly. Boy, oh boy is it not Chip Kelly. Picture Chip on a bus tour of East Tennessee and surrounding environs trying to buddy up and good ol’ boy, and realize that Butch Jones is a social genius in comparison to a hypothetical Chip Kelly. Also Jones like recruiting, a thing Chip Kelly enjoyed as much as London enjoyed the Black Death.

Plus you got a projected top ten recruiting class! You’ve had those before under Butch Jones. We’re undermining our point here, and will stop typing this section immediately before it gets any worse.

(For fun, feel free to turn this on a Florida fan who wants to fire Jim McElwain. Like us! Like us, for instance.)

Looks like he’s using a flip phone even when using a regular phone

All phones instantly look like flip phones when Butch Jones uses them. It’s an attitude thing, you either have it or you don’t.

Derisive nickname you can set your watch to. The most cutting insult Tennessee fans have for Butch Jones is to call him by his first name: Lyle. You don’t find that every day, Tennessee, even if we just realized that the SEC East has a Barry, a Derek, a Kirby, and a Lyle. There’s a damn 1960s British Invasion act just lurking in the SEC East’s coaching ranks.

Walks facefirst into mockery. Don’t sleep on this. If your coach is going to underwhelm, let them do it with some entertainment value. Other coaches go 14-20 in the SEC without giving you The Champions of Life, or making a literal garbage can the symbol of a struggling team. Butch Jones refuses to do that, and we should all show a little appreciation for his willingness—nay, his talent!—at playing a punching bag.

Is not Derek Dooley. Cannot confirm, but can only suspect that he is not, in fact, Derek Dooley.

We guarantee he will not be hired away by the USC football program; Additionally, it is unlikely he will be hired away by any other, at the moment. The future is a dimly lit sign in the distance to all of us, but on the list of “Butch Jones might do,” the option “fleeing to Southern Cal in the middle of the night,” or even “Signed by UTEP in a stunning, if potentially disastrous for his career, kind of coup” for Jones seems deeply unlikely.

Can look confused at a level. Passable acting in a local ad, too.

We did tell you he had a perfectly square head. Minecraft-ass lookin’ coach.