Arkansas State head coach Butch Jones, the controversial former Tennessee Vols head coach, appeared to completely throw his 2021 ASU team under the bus earlier this season.

Jones spoke at the Little Rock Touchdown Club at the end of October and, in typical Butch fashion, offered plenty of excuses for the Red Wolves' disappointing record under his watch.

Arkansas State went 2-10 in Jones' first year with the program. This past season, the Red Wolves finished 3-9.

There aren't many ways to spin a 5-19 record in two seasons as a positive. So Butch went the excuse route.

And his top excuse appeared to be blaming his team's culture in 2021.

Is this out of bounds for a coach to say? Or is just being transparent? Feels to me like he’s throwing his 2021 team under the bus. Not sure I’ve heard a coach say that his team “didn’t like each other” pic.twitter.com/VBzuxNayXS

— zach ragan (@zachTNT) December 16, 2022

"I'll be very transparent, I did not like our culture last year," said Jones. "It wasn't what Butch Jones puts his name on. It's not what we stand for. We had a very divided team. We had a group of individuals that did not like each other. They did not invest in each other."

I'm sure it's happened before, but I can't remember ever hearing a head coach publicly trash his own team's culture.

I mean, the culture is his responsibility. If it was bad, that's on him. But it sounds like he's trying to blame the players for the bad culture and use that as an excuse for Arkansas State's poor 2021 season.

If you're a Tennessee fan, none of this is likely a surprise. Butch made constant excuses during his time at UT. And he never held himself accountable when things went south.

By the way, a bad culture is what eventually cost Jones his job at Tennessee. It started near the end of the 2016 season and carried into 2017. It was bad enough that Travis Haney, then with 247Sports, wrote an extensive article about the poor culture.

Haney's article was dismissed by many at the time, but every word of it ended up being accurate.

And now it sounds like Butch is traveling down the same road at Arkansas State.

You gotta feel bad for Red Wolves fans because anyone who followed Butch at Tennessee knows this is the beginning of the end.

It won't be long before Arkansas State is looking for a new football coach. And I imagine Butch will show up in Tuscaloosa on Nick Saban's doorstep asking for his intern job back (Saban's words, not mine).

Featured image via Joseph Maiorana-USA TODAY Sports