November 12, 2017

  • Chris LowESPN Senior Writer

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    • College football reporter
    • Joined ESPN.com in 2007
    • Graduate of the University of Tennessee

Tennessee, winless this season in SEC play, has fired fifth-year double-decker Butch Jones with two games left in the regular season.

"Late [Saturday] dark, information technology was axiomatic this was probably the direction we needed to go for the best of all concerned," Tennessee athletic manager John Currie said Sunday at a news conference. "We wanted our educatee-athletes to have the best possible chance for success. We want Coach Jones and his family unit to be treated with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

"Nosotros want to be able to focus, from my perspective, on the search going forward."

Defensive line jitney Brady Hoke volition serve every bit the Volunteers' acting head coach.

On Saturday, Tennessee was blown out fifty-17 at Missouri for the Vols' fifth loss in their by vi games. Two weeks agone, they lost at Kentucky, marking only their 2d loss to the Wildcats in the past 33 years.

Currie said he was looking for someone "with the highest integrity and character, with the skills and vision to propel Tennessee to championships."

"We await our coach to have the dynamics that would enable him to lead the states to where nosotros know Tennessee football can and should be," Currie said. "Our bus needs to know what that looks like."

The Vols' side by side coach volition be Tennessee's fifth head motorcoach in the past 11 years. That's later on Tennessee went 32 years with merely two head coaches: John Majors and Phillip Fulmer.

Jones guided Tennessee to dorsum-to-back ix-win seasons in 2015 and 2016 but was only 3-9 in his past 12 SEC games dating dorsum to last flavor. His overall tape at Tennessee was 34-27.

Jones' contract runs through March 2021. His buyout is effectually $eight one thousand thousand because he is owed $ii.5 million per year remaining on his bargain. That buyout volition be mitigated past whatever salary he might earn in a new coaching chore. Jones was making $4.11 million per yr at Tennessee.

The backlash among fans had been rising this season just really ratcheted up afterwards a 41-0 home loss to Georgia on Sept. 30, the Vols' most lopsided loss in Neyland Stadium history.

Tennessee was i of just three SEC teams to win at least ix games during the 2015 and 2016 seasons. But during an injury-plagued 2016 season, the Vols did not capitalize on early season wins over Florida and Georgia and lost games to Southward Carolina and Vanderbilt belatedly in the flavor to squander a gamble to play in their starting time SEC championship game since 2007, Fulmer's next-to-last season.

When Jones took over in 2013, Tennessee had recorded merely one winning flavor in the previous five years and had lost at to the lowest degree six games in a season for five straight years. He upgraded the roster significantly with iv direct top-15 recruiting classes nationally from 2014 to 2017, co-ordinate to ESPN's rankings, but wasn't able to translate that recruiting success to the field, especially in large games. The Vols were just v-xv under Jones against Associated Press-ranked opponents and 3-12 against Alabama, Florida and Georgia, their three biggest annual rivals.

Since the starting time of the 2000 flavor, Tennessee is just 15-39 against Alabama, Florida and Georgia. Fulmer, who was fired in 2008, has 11 of those wins. Jones has three. Lane Kiffin, whose just season was 2009, has 1. Derek Dooley, who was Tennessee's omnibus from 2010 to 2012, has none.

Currie is in his showtime twelvemonth every bit Tennessee'southward athletic manager, and sources told ESPN that his preference was to give Jones more than time. Merely with fan frustration growing and the reality that hanging on to Jones any longer would only make the situation worse, Currie made the determination to cut ties with Jones with regular-season games remaining.

Tennessee last won an SEC championship in 1998, the year the Vols won the national title with a 13-0 tape. Tennessee's concluding top-20 finish in the final AP poll was 2007, the year earlier Fulmer was fired. Fulmer's teams finished in the top 20 of the terminal AP poll in 10 of his sixteen full seasons, including vi peak-10 finishes.