This isn’t the way Jeremy Pruitt wanted to go down to his former employer.

Tennessee lost to Alabama by a demoralizing 58-21 margin on Saturday in a game that featured the most points Alabama ever scored in the annual rivalry. Tua Tagovailoa passed for 306 yards and four touchdowns without even playing in the fourth quarter — which is something he has yet to do this season.

The first-year Tennessee coach clearly took issue with how his team competed when facing the No. 1 team in the nation, calling out his club for their lack of effort in the first half of the game. Here’s what Pruitt said to his squad at halftime, when the Vols were down 42-14 heading into the break, according to CBS sideline reporter Jamie Erdahl:

“I made them a promise, we have a few guys playing the right way and doing all the right things. I promise you I’ll recruit 25 other guys that will play the right way so we don’t have to play in another game like this,” Pruitt said.

Here are Pruitt’s post-game comments, starting with his opening comments:

“They have a really good football team. Lots of playmakers on the offensive side of the ball, stretch you sideline to sideline. They could probably not throw a pass all day and still score 58 points. If you are going to play these guys, you have to deny them the ball. You have to be able to play man-to-man and we struggled to do that. If you can’t run the ball, you won’t beat anyone. We knew we’d have to play a perfect game to beat them.”

“There are some guys in this game that showed this game was way too big for them, I think everyone was able to see that. We will move on with it and play a good team next week.”

on playing Keller Chryst and if that was a decision based on Jarrett Guarantano’s play:

“No, Jarrett got hit, I don’t know how many times. Probably every time he threw the football. Keller came in and made some good throws, we just stayed with Keller.”

Pruitt on his halftime message:

“I’ll tell you what, we have guys in our program in 10 months that have really changed the way they think. They’ve really changed the way they go about their business every single day. They try to do exactly what they want us to do. If you look at their sideline and ours, it don’t look the same. We have guys that are committed to The University of Tennessee and are doing it the right way. They have got to help us recruit, because we don’t have enough guys that want to do it the right way. But we have a good foundation of guys that want to do it the right way.”

on Alontae Taylor’s ejection:

“I think a lot of it is pose and experience. Alontae punched the guy in the head. I saw it, it happened right in front of me.”

on how long before his team is ready to compete in games like this:

“We have four seniors that are playing on our football team right now. We have a lot of guys trying to do it the right way but we have guys out… It showed today. You can’t really tell how some guys competed today… When we trade four guys for 25, it will help.”

Following this loss, Tennessee falls to 3-4 on the season. The Vols travel to South Carolina next weekend.