The Tennessee Volunteers have a new head coach in Jeremy Pruitt, but the former Alabama defensive coordinator will split his time between the Tide and the Vols in the coming weeks.

That’s because Alabama is in the College Football Playoff and Pruitt wants to finish what he started with his old squad.

However, the Tennessee search is finally over, and ESPN’s Paul Finebaum likes the hire. During his Monday morning appearance on “The Opening Drive” on WJOX, Finebaum said he thinks new AD Phillip Fulmer did a good job with the search once he took over, but cautioned that Tennessee fans need to be patient with Pruitt.

“I like the fact that Fulmer was able to, in a matter of days, lower expectations, quit chasing coaches all over the country and quit embarrassing the university,” he said. “We’ve both watched first-year coaches before, and sometimes they work very successfully and sometimes they fail miserably. Kirby Smart had a rough first year because he didn’t understand and know the lay of the land.

“That’s always going to be held against you, but to me, the Fulmer component is not that big of a deal. I don’t think any Alabama fan is overly concerned about what Phillip Fulmer is doing behind the curtain in Knoxville.”

Finebaum added that he thinks it’s great that Pruitt wants to finish what he started at Alabama, but said that recruiting tensions will be high in the coming weeks.

“I give Jeremy credit for wanting to do it,” he said. “Alabama is probably a little better off with him being there. But if he thinks that by the time he leaves — whether it’s on Jan. 1 or Jan. 9 — that he’s going to have good feelings with the staff he’s working with now, and working against on the recruiting, he’s in for a shock.”

Tennessee needs to quickly rebuild a 2018 recruiting class that fell apart in the wake of Butch Jones’s firing and the subsequent embarrassing search for his replacement.

Whether Pruitt can balance his new job with his old one remains to be seen, but for now, he’s going to give it his best shot.