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Butch Jones earns new job title at Alabama; he's now Nick Saban's special assistant

Butch Jones has earned a new job title at Alabama.

He is now the special assistant to the head coach, according to the Alabama athletics department's staff directory

The former Tennessee coach spent the previous two seasons as an offensive analyst at Alabama after he was fired in November 2017 amid his fifth season with the Vols.

His new role remains an off-the-field position rather than one of Alabama's allotted 10 on-field assistant positions.

Alabama coach Nick Saban said in October, ahead of his team's annual Third Saturday in October rivalry game against Tennessee, that Jones is "a great person and a great guy to have in your organization."

“Most of the stuff (Jones does) is behind the scenes,” Saban said then. “Film study, doing administrative-type work. He always does a ‘What do we need to do on offense?’ for me, in his opinion, in terms of improving, based on film study and things like that. His role has always sort of been that. He’s done a really, really good job of it."

Jones reportedly interviewed for the Rutgers head coaching position last fall, but Rutgers instead hired Greg Schiano. Tennessee planned to hire Schiano as Jones' replacement in 2017 before backlash from fans, donors and politicians killed the offer.

Jones reportedly was close to taking an on-field assistant coach position at Maryland a year ago but opted to return to Saban’s staff for a second season.

He's still getting paid handsomely by Tennessee, where his contract expires Feb. 28, 2021. 

Tennessee owed Jones an $8.26 million buyout – at a rate of $2.5 million per year – due in monthly installments through the end of his contract.

Jones’ contract carried a duty to mitigate the damages. As of last February, he was earning $35,000 annually as an Alabama analyst, which hardly dented Tennessee's buyout.

Jones collected $2.46 million in severance from Tennessee during the 2019 calendar year, according to figures UT's athletics department supplied to Knox News in response to a public records request.

Overall, he had collected $5.27 million in buyout payments from Tennessee from the time of his firing through the end of 2019.

Blake Toppmeyer covers University of Tennessee football. Email him at blake.toppmeyer@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. If you enjoy Blake’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it. Current subscribers can click here to join Blake's FREE text group offering updates and analysis on Vols football.