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Tennessee coach Butch Jones wants 'competitors' with '5-star hearts'

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer
Tennessee was 9-4 in 2016. (Getty)
Tennessee was 9-4 in 2016. (Getty)

Tennessee didn’t snag a five-star recruit in the recruiting class it signed Wednesday. At least according to Rivals. If you ask coach Butch Jones, he’ll say all of his players have five-star qualities.

Jones laid out an interesting set of coachspeak guidelines for players he wants on his team Thursday afternoon at a post-recruiting event in Nashville. From Go Vols 24/7:

“We’ve spoken about the competitive nature, and I think that’s really, really big in today’s world,” Jones said. Everyone gets into the whole two-star, three-star, four-star, five-star thing. The only five-star that we even concern ourselves with is a five-star heart.

“We want five-star hearts and five-star competitors.”

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Jones really likes to speak in clichés and of things that aren’t measurable. After all, this is the same coach who said — after Tennessee was eliminated from SEC East title contention — that his team had won the championship of life. The week after Jones made his remarks, Tennessee lost its regular season finale to Vanderbilt, passing the championship of life on to the Commodores. Vanderbilt was probably more excited about the bowl berth, however. The win got Vandy to 6-6 and a trip to Shreveport.

Is going to Shreveport around Christmas time better than winning the championship of life? Could be a good poll question.

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Anyway, back to Jones, who said Wednesday high school administrators were telling him on recruiting visits that “Tennessee was back” as Tennessee signed the No. 15 class in the country. The Vols won nine games for the second year in a row in 2016, but the season was anything but spectacular. Running back Jalen Hurd transferred in the middle of the season and Tennessee couldn’t (again) take advantage of a depleted SEC East despite beating both Florida and Georgia.

Maybe 2017 is the year where the tangible will replace the intangible for Tennessee.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!