Butch Jones is not long for the Tennessee football coaching job. Jones is 33-26 at Knoxville and 3-5 this year, en route to a second consecutive disappointing season. A Week 9 game at Kentucky was a must-win for Jones to save his job, and he didn’t win. He’ll be gone soon.
Tennessee fans want people to boycott home games to force Butch Jones’ firing
It’s an interesting gambit, and it’s become a big thing online. Will it actually matter?
Michael Patrick-USA TODAY Sports
Tennessee fans are trying to force the issue. For a couple of weeks now, there’s been message board chatter about one method get Jones out: boycotting home games until athletic director John Currie officially makes the move to cut ties with his coach.
The first experimentation will be Saturday against Southern Miss (7:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network). These fans want you not to show up at Neyland Stadium.
The movement really picked up after the Kentucky loss. Maybe the biggest wellspring of Empty Neyland frustration is a 101-page (and counting!) thread at VolNation.com, titled “Empty Neyland Movement.” Its original post sums up the idea pretty well:
Butch Jones STOLE checkered Neyland from the fans. Let’s give him the fans vote on him.
Us as fans have a vote. I hope, hope, hope this has been enough for Currie. But let’s show no doubt.
There is a #emptyneyland going. Fans get behind this leave no doubt on what we will tolerate. We all are screaming to fire Butch, fire Currie.
It’s simple join empty Neyland movement if Butch remains head coach through tomorrow midday.
This will force the change that is needed. And the fans only vote.
Burn tickets on social media. Tag in Currie,Jones,and sports media outlets.
We all support the players. Let’s help them remove the man (Butch Jones) that is hurting their development and causing them losses.
There’s now a vibrant Twitter hashtag, #EmptyNeyland, that’s unveiled plenty of anger. Most of the people using it are down with the cause, like these folks:
Others see it as the wrong move, even a betrayal of Tennessee’s current players.
A former Vols player and assistant coach:
I agree that it’s a pretty lame thing to do to players just to make a point. But people who’ve bought tickets do have the right to do whatever they want with those tickets.
The Vols’ PA announcer has a really good idea. He posted on Facebook (bolding mine):
If you’re one not going to the Southern Miss game Saturday, please consider dropping off your unused tickets to our radio station at 4711 Old Kingston Pike before noon Friday. I am going to coordinate finding families/kids who can’t afford to attend and get them tickets. I attended my first UT game as a child when a neighbor took me. My father had died and money was tight. I’ll always remember that kind gesture. It started my fandom that continues to this day. Please consider passing along the gameday experience to a youngster that might not otherwise get to live it. My work number is 865-212-4516 if you wish to coordinate with me personally. Please share this post so as to spread the word. Thanks in advance and GO VOLS!!!
Jeff Jarnigan’s plea to get boycotters’ tickets into the hands of underprivileged families and children has been shared more than 500 times.
This week is a homecoming game, and UT’s attendance is always huge.
Year in and year out, Tennessee averages about 100,000 fans at home games, according to the NCAA’s official counts. The Vols are regularly in the top 10 nationally in attendance, and they pack Neyland very close to its capacity, which the school lists as 102,455.
At home games this season, the Vols have announced one sellout, one crowd of about 99,000, one of about 95,000, and one of about 98,000. The sellout was an SEC East rivalry game with Georgia, and by the end, this is how the bleachers looked:
Tennessee has one of the most passionate fanbases in the country. Neyland is close to full more often than it isn’t. The conditions are ripe for a drop in turnout, and if Jones coaches out the season, it’s not like enthusiasm will rise.
But Jones is likely getting fired anyway.
Judging the success of this push is going to be hard.
Tennessee’s attendance might indeed go down, but how much of that is because of the #EmptyNeyland movement, and how much is because Tennessee is awful? Or because the Vols are playing a Conference USA team this week? Of all of those, an internet drive to get people not to show up seems like the least significant factor.
It’s easy enough to see this approach backfiring in the long run. Fans boycotting their program during a bad year isn’t exactly enticing to recruits or prospective coaches.
But Jones will be gone soon enough anyway. Maybe that’ll be enough to claim victory.
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