Butch Jones literally beat Tennessee after years of figuratively beating Tennessee

For almost five years, Butch Jones coached Tennessee.

He built the program, in his words, “brick by brick,” but it was not on a firm enough foundation to withstand the gale force winds that basically every opponent would bring to the table every week.

Until beating Auburn last week with Jeremy Pruitt at the helm, the Vols had lost to every other SEC team in their most recent meeting. Much of that was the doing of Jones while he was in Knoxville. One could say that Jones was holding the program back from its potential and in a way, putting Tennessee at a disadvantage every time is stepped out onto the field.

Alabama absolutely dominated Tennessee in 2018, scoring 21 points on their first 10 plays, and putting up 58 by the time it was over. The 58 points the Tide scored are the most ever put up by a team in the Third Saturday In October rivalry series.

But ask yourself, who was primarily to blame for the Tennessee team you saw on the field in the blowout? Jones recruited a majority of the team of course.

There was the time Tennessee lost historically to Georgia:

For more than a century, Tennessee avoided getting embarrassed at home by more than 40 points, but Saturday cracked open the history books. Quarterback Quinten Dormady completed just five of his 16 passes for 64 yards and two interceptions. Backup Jarrett Guarantano didn’t fare much better with only 16 yards on seven attempts.

Or twice in gut wrenching fashion against Florida in Gainesville.

But against Alabama, Jones may have produced his most impressive work of ineptitude. The Vols lost in 2017 to the Tide for an 11th-straight time, this time they didn’t even cover the spread, which was the largest in the series history. The spread was 36.5, and Bama won by 38.

Nick Saban has been collecting fired coaches like Thanos in Infinity War, hellbent on domination of the sport. He added Jones to the staff as an analyst this offseason.

It is quite clear that Jones is living his best life with the Tide. But Week 8 gave him the cherry on top. After doing it in theory for years, Jones finally got his official win over the Vols.

To the victor go the spoils.

Leading up the game, the Tide players were making it a small point of motivation to get their new analyst a puff.

“We kind of joke with him about the whole situation,” Tide running back Josh Jacobs told reporters leading up to the game. ”He’s never, you know what I’m saying, smoked a cigar before. We’re trying to make that a goal of his.”

Mission accomplished.