Don’t feel too bad for the former Tennessee head coach. I think he’ll get by just fine financially.
Late last month, reports surfaced that Butch Jones could be headed to Alabama in an off-field role; a couple of weeks later, Nick Saban acknowledged the mutual interest. A little over a week ago, after some paperwork issues were smoothed out, the head coach confirmed that Jones will serve as an offensive analyst for the Crimson Tide this coming season.
Thursday, in response to an open-records request, the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported that Jones will pull in a whopping $35,000 this season in his role as an analyst.
Jones, of course, was the head coach at rival Tennessee for nearly five seasons before he was summarily dismissed in mid-November of last year. Prior to that, he was the head coach at Cincinnati (2010-12) and Central Michigan (2007-09); his last job that didn’t involve being a head coach or position coach came as a graduate assistant at Rutgers from 1990-92.
The job with the Vols, which ended with, among other things, a 14-24 mark in conference play, was Jones’ first of any kind in the SEC. Included in that conference record was a 0-5 mark against the Crimson Tide in which the Volunteers were outscored by a combined score of 192-61.
Per his UT contract, Jones will be paid just over $8 million in the form of a buyout, minus whatever he was to make at future jobs through February of 2021. In other words, Jones will pull in an additional $200,000 or so from his former employer while he’s working for his former employer’s rival.