By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

It’s difficult in sports and just life in general, to temper your excitement or to realize the world isn’t going to come to an end based off of a singular event.

It’s like listening to “Baby Got Back” and announcing that Sir Mix-A-Lot is the greatest rapper to ever walk the face of the earth, without listening to everything else he’s done. Or in the case of Tennessee head coach Butch Jones, it’s like judging Adam Sandler’s career off “Jack & Jill” but not giving him credit for “Happy Gilmore”.

It’s easy right now to pile onto Jones and to argue that he deserves to be relieved of his duties as the Vols head coach; lord knows there’s been enough of those articles written the past few weeks.

So, as someone who usually tries to give the coach the benefit of the doubt, instead of arguing why Jones should be let go, I’m going to attempt to argue why he should keep his job. (This may wind up being a little more difficult than I think.)

For starters, over the five year period before Jones arrived in 2012 Tennessee had finished the season on the north side of .500 only once. That was during Lane Kiffin’s one and only season in Knoxville. Jones won 5 games in his inaugural season followed by 7 wins in year two, and back to back 9-win seasons in years three and four. Those 9-win seasons were the most wins Tennessee had in consecutive seasons since ‘06 and ‘07.

To put that information in even more perspective, those five years prior to Jones’ arrival were the worst five year stretch for the Volunteers since the late seventies. We’re talking Kentucky football level of bad. Jones turned their fortunes around and brought them back to respectability.

I’d love to go in-depth with a knockout second reason why Butch shouldn’t lose his job, but truth be told, I can’t. (Told you was this going to be more difficult than I thought.)

The fact of the matter is I can’t even fabricate reasons as to why he should continue to be the Volunteer coach- barring some miraculous turnaround.

I’ve mentioned this over the past few years, admittedly in a more assertive way lately, that Butch’s downfall has been the expectations he has put on himself and the program.

I’ve never though Jones was a great coach, but he’s done himself a disservice writing checks that his teams never had the talent to cash. Or, in the rare case they did, underperforming so that it magnifies Jones’ shortcomings as a coach.

It’s one thing to set expectations a little high at Central Michigan or Cincinnati and then not meet them. It’s a completely different scenario to fall short of those expectations at Tennessee.

Following the tenures of both Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley, two coaches hires where using the term “misfire” is an understatement, Butch Jones was exactly what the program needed.

Unfortunately for him, the positivity and excitement he brought, endearing him to the fan base and getting them excited about Tennessee football, won’t be enough to keep his job.

In a weird sort of way, they may actually play a role in his departure; something that at least at this point, seems to be a foregone conclusion.

In a profession that makes decisions based on “what have you done for me lately” it’s easy to forget what has been done up to that point. That’s not always the right way to view things, but in this particular case, it is.