What’s the biggest challenge of coaching in the SEC? It might be fighting the accelerated work of Father Time, according to Butch Jones.
As he begins to wrap up his third year as the head coach at Tennessee, Jones has seen a little bit of everything in his tenure at Tennessee as he’s faced periods of great success and tribulation while attempting to rebuild UT from a sub-.500 program to what he hopes is a contender in the SEC as soon as 2016. He was asked about how his tenure his been different than what he expected and gave an extended answer on Monday.
“It really isn’t anything that I didn’t expect,” he said. “I have had a lot of friends who have coached in this conference, and a lot of head coaching friends who have coached in this conference and do coach in this conference. There is a reason why this is the best football conference in the country. When everyone asks me my response is always the same. Every day you get up it is fourth in one for the national championship game, it doesn’t matter if it is recruiting, it doesn’t matter if it is in the off-season, and it doesn’t matter if it is in the season.
“Everything is contested. Everything you do in this conference from a competitive standpoint even from a resource standpoint from facilities to what you could do each and every day to elevate your program. Doing anything you can do get a competitive advantage. The biggest thing is that it puts years on your life. My wife showed me a picture of me three short years ago and I look like a different person so I have to practice what I preach and get some health back. When you are passion about what you are doing, and we have a passionate fan base here and all I am concerned about is our players and giving our fans a product that they can be very proud of.”
The visual proof:
Butch spoke about how much this job has aged him in three years. Here you go: pic.twitter.com/pjSTn7gsVv
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) November 23, 2015
