Former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones has accepted a position on Mike Locksley's staff at Maryland, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation confirmed to InsideMDSports.
Jones, who spent last year as an offensive analyst at Alabama, is expected to coach tight ends and serve as an associate head coach at Maryland. The 50-year old Michigan native, who also served as head coach at Cincinnati and Western Michigan, formed a relationship with Locksley during their year together under Nick Saban and will now work for him in his first coaching position since he was let go at Tennessee in 2017. After spending five years and a posting 34-27 record in Knoxville, he became the latest former head coach to join Saban's staff in an effort to start anew -- just as Locksley had two years earlier -- but was limited to off-field duties because Alabama's in-field coaching staff was full.
Jones was reportedly paid just $35,000 this season because the $8.3 settlement he reached with Tennessee is to be paid through 2021, and so any income received from another school would ostensibly be subtracted from that payout. So it's unclear what the financial terms will be, but what's certain is Locksley's hiring an experienced former head coach who posted a combined 50-27 record at Cincinnati and Central Michigan, and who signed two top-10 classes at Tennessee.
"Butch can't coach the players," Saban said earlier this season. "He works hard in terms of assisting our coaches in planning and preparation. Butch is a very bright guy, and he's done a really good job of that. Basically what he does is assist Mike (Locksley) as much as possible and always gives me a little summary of things that he thinks we need to work on on offense and just from an overall view from a thousand feet type of thing, which has been very helpful."
Jones' hiring is part of a makeover Locksley, hired to succeed DJ Durkin at Maryland, is engineering in College Park. Few staffers are likely to remain from the staff built by Durkin, whose November firing resulted from a scandalous six-month stretch that began with the death of lineman Jordan McNair, was marred by accusations of player mistreatment and included two separate investigations into the program's culture and the medical staff's treatment of McNair. After he was placed on leave in August pending the results of those investigations, Durkin was reinstated by Maryland's Board of Regents in November. School president Wallace Loh reversed that decision a day later, firing Durkin after his reinstatement prompted a whirlwind of public outrage.
Jones met with Locksley in College Park earlier this week and agreed to take the job, sources said. He replaces Dave Bucar, hired by Durkin in February as Maryland's tight ends coach.