Kansas Jayhawks: Get Butch Jones on the phone

With their third straight 10+ loss season all but locked in, the Kansas Jayhawks need to move on from David Beaty. Butch Jones should be a top target.

Kansas Jayhawks fans have yet to see any improvement in the football program under third-year head coach David Beaty. In fact, assuming the Jayhawks lose at least one more game, this will be the first time in program history of getting three straight 10+ loss seasons. It’s time to think about a new coach, and Butch Jones may be the answer.

Despite his early success with the program, Tennessee has decided to part ways with Butch Jones. While this move was not unexpected, I’m going to call it a dumb one by the Volunteers athletic department. This is the kind of mistake that the Kansas athletic department needs to take advantage of.

There will undoubtedly be a big market for a coach with Butch Jones’s resume, so the Jayhawks need to be aggressive. It’s time to turn this football program around, and you can’t do that without a competent coach leading the program. Jones would give KU just that.

All He’s Done Is Win

Butch Jones took over a struggling Tennessee program back in 2013. He would quickly turn things around and take that program to three straight bowl games within his first four years there. Tennessee finished the 2015 and 2016 seasons with a 9-4 record. However, that success set a much higher goal for 2017.

A lot of fans will point to the Volunteers current 3-5 record and say the Kansas Jayhawks can do better than Butch Jones. This is absolutely foolish. What Jones did with Tennessee shows he has the ability to turn around a struggling program. However, this is something Jones has shown he can do with smaller programs as well.

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Prior to his  stint in Tennessee, Butch Jones had taken over the programs at Cincinnati and Central Michigan. At both schools, Jones showed a marked improvement in the football operations. His overall record is 84-53 with eight bowl appearances and four conference championships in 11 seasons as a head coach.

The Jayhawks Are Unlikely To Find Better

There is no doubt that landing Butch Jones would be an absolute coup for the Kansas Jayhawks.  The KU job is not a good one right now. There are no sure-fire building pieces on the roster, nor does Kansas have a solid foothold in recruiting. The Jayhawks also have a very poor football history, which limits attractiveness of the job.

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It would not be a stretch to call Kansas the worst of the Power 5 football schools. Other teams may be down or struggling, but only KU seems to do it on a consistent basis. There just isn’t much to like about this football program.

That means the Kansas athletic department will either need to shell out a lot of money for a proven coach, or hope to land the next up and coming young guy/coordinator. If KU is serious about fixing the football program, they need that proven head coach. Even if the Jayhawks are willing to offer a lot of money, many coaches will pass.

Kansas Jayhawks football is once again at a point where a big decision needs to be made. The Jayhawks need to move on from David Beaty, but the next step is not an easy one. KU needs a proven head coach to fix the program, and Butch Jones is a great option. They’ll need to get aggressive in going after him.