Butch Jones Draws Interest From Purdue

Cincinnati is still alive for a Big East conference title, but they are in danger of losing the coach of their football team, Butch Jones, when the regular season ends.

Jones was rumored to be the top candidate to replace Joker Philips at Kentucky, but according to FootballScoop.com, “The meeting between Butch Jones and Kentucky administration did not go as expected by the parties.”

This leads me to believe that Kentucky did not offer Jones the type of money or yearly commitment that he is seeking and decided to pull himself from consideration for the job of rebuilding the program that is at the cellar of the SEC east.

Jones makes $1.15 million next season at Cincinnati and would be looking to make a significant raise in pay to bolt the Bearcats after winning 18 games over the past two seasons–and having a relative easy path to the BCS in the weak Big East.

He still has options with Kentucky out of the mix and Purdue could be the next to inquire about his services.

However, the same issue that kept him from the Kentucky gig could keep him from being the next coach of the Boilermakers. Purdue was last in the Big Ten in spending on coaching and the recently fired Danny Hope made less than one million in guaranteed salary.

Therefore, for Purdue to be a serious player for Jones, my guess the school would need to double what they were paying Hope to lure Jones to West Lafayette for him to bring ‘hope’ to a stagnant football program.

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Patrick is a diehard Chicago sports and an avid college football fan, and the host of “The Wake-up Call,” a weekly sports show on Sportstownchicago.com airing live on Wednesday mornings from 8-10. View his show’s website here.