Butch Jones Leading Candidate for New Head Coaching Vacancy

Former Tennessee Head Coach Butch Jones is now the leading candidate for another job

Butch Jones's monthly buyout installments end on February 28th of 2021, and for the majority of his time away from Tennessee's program, he has served as an off-field assistant to Nick Saban, which has not alleviated the buyout any.

Now, with time winding down, Jones is reportedly the leading candidate for the Arkansas State job. The job came open on Thursday when Blake Anderson left for the same position at Utah State.

Football Scoop reported the news, and said:

Butch Jones is the leading candidate for the head coaching position at Arkansas State, sources told FootballScoop on Saturday.

We’re told a deal could be done as soon as tonight. Alabama completed its regular season with a 52-3 win over Arkansas early Saturday afternoon.

Jones is currently the special assistant to the head coach at Alabama, but prior to that was the head coach at Central Michigan, Cincinnati and Tennessee. He went 84-54 in 11 combined seasons, winning four conference titles at Central Michigan and Cincinnati. Jones’s 2009 team at Central Michigan went 11-2 overall, unbeaten in the MAC, and became the only team in CMU history to reach the AP poll. He led Cincinnati to back-to-back Big East titles in 2011-12, and his 18-8 stretch from 2015-16 at Tennessee represent that program’s best run in a decade.

Tennessee owed Jones $8.26 million dollars.