Watch: Rece Davis drops a “Tennessee, champions of life” reference

The Tennessee Volunteers were eliminated from contention for the SEC’s East Division title and a berth in the conference championship game Saturday when Florida beat LSU, but head coach Butch Jones said his seniors “won the biggest championship – that’s the championship of life.” That quote provoked plenty of meltdowns from fans, as you’d expect, and it also led to ESPN’s Rece Davis trolling Jones on the College Football Playoff rankings show Tuesday night:

“Tennessee, champions of life, number 17 in the College Football Playoff rankings.” Nicely done. The burst of laughter from ESPN’s panelists is also pretty great. Well played, Rece, well played. Here’s the full Jones quote that started it all:

“These individuals mean a lot to me personally and they mean a lot to our football program. When we talked about winning championships, they’re a champion. They’ve won the biggest championship and that’s the championship of life. And they’re going to be college graduates. Some of them are already college graduates. Whey they’ve brought from a leadership standpoint, from a stability standpoint, from getting Tennessee football back – it used to be just win a game, now it is not just winning the game, it’s how you win the game, it’s now what’s next. That’s everything that they’ve built over the course of time. I talked about being 14-3.”

Jones is right that there’s more to life than just wins and losses, but that’s probably not what your fanbase wants to hear after losing the chance to win an on-field championship. It did get the Vols a little more attention from ESPN, though.

[Ben Koo on Clippit]