Butch Jones makes wild statement comparing himself to Nick Saban

Former Tennessee Vols head coach Butch Jones, who is currently the head coach at Arkansas State, made a wild statement recently where he appeared to compare himself to legendary Alabama head coach Nick Saban. 

A recent article from The Montgomery Independent highlights some comments that Jones made while discussing his time as an off-field assistant at Alabama for three seasons (the job paid him around $30k per year which allowed him to draw his full buyout from Tennessee). 

Jones revealed that he was going to join Urban Meyer's staff at Ohio State before taking the job with Alabama. 

From The Montgomery Independent: “I was sitting at home, all set to go to Ohio State and be with Urban Meyer,” Jones recalled. “Urban Meyer had to go out of town and the next day I get a call from Coach Saban. ‘We’d like for you to come in and interview.’ I thought to myself, I ask our players to be comfortable being uncomfortable, I need to do the same. It was the first interview I had been on in a long time.....The next day, Coach Saban called and offered me a job. Urban Meyer was out of town and I said, ‘You know what? What a great opportunity.’ And I took the job.”

While discussing his time with Saban, Jones made a statement that is wild even for a guy who is famous for "five-star hearts", "he landed on a helmet and that's the truth", and "champions of life". 

"It’s really just taking things off (Saban’s) plate. You’ve got to be a free thinker, you have to run on your own gas and think like a head coach," said Jones according to The Montgomery Independent. "I always thought, using my head coaching experience, if I had somebody in this role, what would I want from them? And the amazing thing is Coach Saban and I think identical.”

You heard the man, he and Nick Saban, arguably the greatest college football coach of all time, think identically. 

Who knew?!?!

I'm not sure there's a coach on the planet with less self-awareness than Jones, who has a 95-80 career record as a head coach.

Saban, by the way, is 292-70-1 as a college head coach and he has seven national championships.

By the way, Jones also revealed in the article that he's going to attend Alabama's game against Michigan in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Eve.