University of Tennessee Athletics
Jones At TaxSlayer Bowl Press Conference
December 11, 2014 | Football
Dec. 11, 2014
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Tennessee head coach Butch Jones was in Jacksonville on Thursday afternoon for the TaxSlayer Bowl Press Conference.
Jones was presented a key to the city of Jacksonville and accepted the official invitation from the TaxSlayer Bowl representatives.
"On behalf of Tennessee, the entire state of Tennessee, our student-athletes, our alumni, our student body and our great fans, we very humbly and very proudly accept your invitation to be a part of this tremendous bowl game," said Jones. "It is very fitting for us. This will be our 50th bowl appearance in our program's proud history and tradition, and what more fitting than to spend it than in Jacksonville, Florida?
"Just like Coach Ferentz said, we called an emergency meeting at 5:30 and Dave Hart, our Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics came sprinting into my office at about 5:20 p.m., and informed me of what was about to occur, so within about 10 minutes we called an emergency team meeting at 5:30 p.m. and I watched our players as they gathered to go in our team meeting room, not knowing what was coming before them and to be able to have that opportunity to stand in front of those young me. All 120 of them, and we've gone through a lot of natural adversities that a long football season presents and to be able to explain to them the magnitude of a January bowl game and the magnitude of the TaxSlayer Bowl was one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had as a football coach.
"We'll only have one player on our football team that's ever experienced a bowl game before, and that's our punter Matt Darr. So you can tell we have a lot of questions and a lot of things associated with going to our first bowl game in a number of years, but we're very excited, very proud to represent Tennessee. Congratulations to Iowa, Iowa is a program that I have watched from afar for a long period of time and have admired their toughness, their consistency in performance and it's going to be a tough challenge. I look forward to seeing everyone, thank you for this tremendous opportunity, Happy Holidays and Go Vols."
