KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee football team has one of the nation’s top head coaches in Butch Jones – a leader who has led the Vols to three consecutive winning seasons, including back-to-back nine-win campaigns.
Jones will enter his 11th season as a head coach in 2017 with unquestionably one of the nation’s top coaching staffs. Four of the Vols’ assistants have previous experience as head coaches at the NCAA Division I level, giving UT an impressive collection of mentors at the top of the college football ladder.
Associate head coach/defensive line coach Brady Hoke has been a conference coach of the year in three different leagues during stints at Ball State (2003-08), San Diego State (2009-10) and Michigan (2011-14), while defensive coordinator Bob Shoop was the head coach at Columbia from 2003-05. Offensive coordinator/tight ends coach Larry Scott spent the second half of the 2015 season as the interim head coach at Miami (Fla.) and quarterbacks coach Mike Canales spent parts of two seasons as the interim head coach at North Texas in 2010 and 2015.
Hoke and Canales will enter their first season with the Vols this fall. Shoop begins his second season as defensive coordinator. Scott enters his second season on Rocky Top, and his first as offensive coordinator.
The four assistants talked to the media on Friday about their experiences as head coaches and took questions on the upcoming season with fall camp set to start on July 29.
“There’s not a day that we come into work that we don’t enjoy working with one another in the defensive room, offense and defense, and the quality controls and the graduate assistants,” said Shoop, who has 28 years of college coaching experience, including the last six years as a Power 5 defensive coordinator.
“We’ve assembled a big-league staff and most importantly it’s a good group of men, leaders, teachers, role models and mentors who happen to be good football coaches.”
Hoke was one the nation’s most impressive hires this offseason. A veteran of 33 years coaching experience at the collegiate level, Hoke has seen 39 of his players get drafted as a head coach. He was named Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2011 and collected the same honor from the Mountain West Conference in 2010 and from the Mid-American Conference in 2008.
Scott led Miami to the Sun Bowl finished with a 4-2 record as the head coach for the Hurricanes during the second half of the 2015 season. He was hired as Tennessee’s tight ends coach in 2015 before being promoted this offseason.
Canales served as the head coach at North Texas for five games in 2010 and seven games in 2015. On of college football’s top developers of quarterbacks, he has 32 years of coaching experience, including 23 years as an offensive coordinator. He watched Jones’ rise to a top head coach from afar and has been impressed with Tennessee’s success in recent years. Canales said he will take his lessons learned as a head coach into his position room.
“Being here where I’ve had a chance to watch Coach Jones’ career, his development and his growth as he climbed the ladder into this position at the University of Tennessee and being good friends and watching what he’s done, it’s been good for me to be here in this situation where I just get to coach a room,” Canales said. “I know I am the CEO of our quarterback room. I think that’s important that they understand that I’ve been a coordinator, a quarterback coach and a head coach. I think Coach Jones values the opinions that we have, but it also gives me a chance to work my room and give them my philosophy that I have gained over the many years that I have coached.”
Brady Hoke
(On how his experience as a head coach prepared him for his role at Tennessee)
“Number one, there are good days and bad days. I think we all know that. My experience helps with my role as coaching the defensive line but also as a guy who has been through a lot of different experiences that you get as a head coach. As an assistant, you really think you know everything a head coach does. Every day is different. When you have 120 men that you work with and their families and the things they’re going through, every day is different. We can help when it comes to tough decisions. Maybe we have gone through it and can give our experiences.”
(On the kind of offseason the line has had)
“Coming into the spring, there were a lot of guys who were held out because of surgeries, injuries or rehab. It’s been refreshing to see where they’re at now. There’s a lot that you want to see from those guys as the new positions coach. Those guys have had a nice summer when you look at strength and body gains. When we have a chance to meet with them, their football intelligence is good. I’m as excited as anybody to see Kendal Vickers. I have watched him on tape a bunch, but I want to work with him live. Also, Kyle Phillips is another guy. There were a lot of them who weren’t there during the spring. Another guy who is getting better is Shy Tuttle. When he gets back to full form, I am really looking forward to that.”
Larry Scott
(On how his experience as a head coach prepared him for his role at Tennessee)
“Until you sit at that end of the table, I don’t think there is anything that will make you ready for that until you take on those responsibilities and run the program from top to bottom. It was one of the best experiences that I’ve ever had. People always ask how you know you’re ready. Well, a lot of people don’t know until they’re thrust in those positions. For me, I had to get ready fast. I had about an hour to get ready and take on the challenges that we had at that point in time at the University of Miami. It was about grabbing the bull by the horns and attacking the situation and refocusing what it’s all about. It all goes back to the players. You promise their parents in living rooms that you’ll develop them into men and football players. It’s also about doing all you can to restore what this is all about, which is winning. It was an awesome opportunity, but it’s definitely helped me as an assistant coach. It gives you the feeling of confidence that you need moving forward. You always look at the next challenge, accept it and then go. That experience definitely shaped me to where I am now.”
(On the 7-on-7’s this summer)
“I think everything, year in and year out, is all about growth. How can we grow as coaches and help players grow as players? Just through the big picture of evaluation through that, with a relatively young football team and new quarterbacks and young receivers, we felt like we needed to get those guys working together, communicating, being on the same page, communicating the verbiage, playing together and getting a feel for each other. This builds the sense of urgency, competition, standards and expectations. All of those things are already in place and allows you to hit the ground running once fall practice starts.”
Bob Shoop
(On having head coaching experience)
“Coach Hoke was the Coach of the Year in the Big 10, the Mountain West and the MAC. Larry Scott did a great job when he was the interim head coach at Miami and Mike Canales did a great job. I was a head coach at Columbia for three years and we didn’t win a lot of games, but I really like this staff, not that I didn’t like the previous staff, but this is a good staff.
“I think the thing that Coach Jones has done by having people on the staff There’s not a day that we come into work that we don’t enjoy working with one another in the defensive room, offense and defense, and the quality controls and the graduate assistant. We’ve assembled a big league staff and most importantly it’s a good group of men, leaders, teachers, role models and mentors who happen to be good football coaches. who have head coaching experience, is we see the big picture. You don’t necessarily agree as a staff with every decision that’s made but you understand why. That’s where Coach Jones allows the staff to do their jobs and that’s what he does a really good job of to me. He manages things well and he’s an excellent communicator. He’s a delegator, a leader and he sets the culture and identity of the team. It’s our job to reinforce that message whether it’s me on defense or Larry on offense or the position coaches. I think that’s been good.
“We just want to put the best product we can on the field and put our players in the best position to be successful and win football games.”
(On the returning defensive line)
“I’m excited about this group. Jonathan Kongbo is on a mission. I think he’s worked hard. He had a good bowl game and he worked as hard as he could since January, getting stronger, getting faster and more explosive. He had a great spring and he’s had a great summer. I think the three guys at defensive end that we’re really excited about are Kongbo, Darrell Taylor and Kyle Phillips. I think those guys are really explosive players and can be good. The fourth end right now, going into camp, would probably be Deandre Johnson, the early enrollee freshman. He had a good spring.
“At defensive tackle, Kendal Vickers is a guy that I think has earned the trust and respect of the coaching staff and the players and he’s kind of the grandfather figure. Everybody just kind of looks to him as the old veteran guy who knows what to do. Kahlil McKenzie has had a great summer and Shy Tuttle is getting healthy again. That’s exciting to me. Quay Picou in the winter and the spring has also made as much progress as anybody in the program. In the freshman group, Matt Butler is a guy who could play both defensive end or tackle. Between Butler, Eric Crosby or Kivon Bennett maybe one of those guys could step in and be the fifth tackle. The lesson I learned last year is you can never have enough guys. We have to continue to develop depth because this league is such a physical league.”
Mike Canales
(On his time as a head coach and how it helps him in his current role)
“Sometimes you look at it as an unfortunate or fortunate situation to be the interim head coach twice at the same place. It was a great situation for myself in that it gave me a chance to use some of the philosophies I had gained throughout my career with the coaches I’ve been involved with. It gave me an opportunity to use those philosophies I had learned from them and their style and I created my own style as the interim head coach at North Texas. You go from worrying about half the team, 50-55 players, to going to now where you’re responsible for anywhere to 105-113 players and now you’re responsible for every young man in the program and making sure they represent the program, the community and the university in a way that you would want them to do.
“Being here where I’ve had a chance to watch Coach Jones’ career, his development and his growth as he climbed the ladder into this position at the University of Tennessee and being good friends and watching what he’s done, it’s been good for me to be here in this situation where I just get to coach a room. I know I am the CEO of our quarterback room. I think that’s important that they understand that I’ve been a coordinator, a quarterback coach and a head coach. I think Coach Jones values the opinions that we have, but it also give me a chance to work my room and give them my philosophy that I have gained over the many years that I have coached.”
(On getting the quarterback mentally game ready)
“It’s pushing them through camp and trying to create a situation as game-like as possible, whether we’re in a scrimmage situation or practice situation where they mentally have to understand it’s game ready.
“Peyton Manning said it to them best in that game preparation, weekly preparation, how you prepare, the communication at the quarterback position from player to coach and coach to player and then every rep at practice has to be a game rep. If I allow one of our quarterbacks to practice at 50% in a rep, I’m cheating him. I’m not going to cheat our quarterbacks. I’m going to get them ready to play and understand that every rep is a game rep. That’s the mentality it has to be at practice. My personality will not allow them to do anything less than 100%. I want perfection in the hope that we’ll reach excellence. That’s what I want at that position, so I’m going to push them as hard as I can push them to be better than they were the day before. I want them to understand that what Peyton Manning said to those guys in that room is what I preach and what I coach. Every rep is a game rep and that’s the way we’re going to practice. That’s the way we’re going to prepare so come Monday when we show up in Georgia, we’re ready to play game speed.”
-UT Athletics
