Things didn’t go according to plan last fall on Rocky Top, which resulted in a losing campaign in Jeremy Pruitt’s first season as a head coach.

The Tennessee coach has not been shy when it comes to the effort his team needs to put in this offseason to ensure the program turns things around immediately on the field come the fall. During a recent radio appearance on Knoxville-based radio program “The Swain Event,” hosted by former Tennessee receiver Jayson Swain, Pruitt pointed to his team missing a bowl game as motivation for not slacking during the summer.

“I think our guys are excited about getting going this summer, you know? I mean, me personally, when I look at it, I don’t know why you’d want to go home. Nothing against going home, but heck, we went home for the bowl season. We went home during spring break,” Pruitt said on the show.

“We’ve had plenty, we’ve had enough breaks. We need to go to work.”

That’s something Pruitt reiterated this week in Destin during his appearance at the SEC spring meetings. While his tone was more complimentary this time around, the Tennessee coach offered up some praise of his team’s commitment to work and their level of buy-in entering Year 2 of his program.

“I think after a year of being there, our players know what they are getting into. We had a great offseason, really good spring, had 14 very productive practices, we had one I wish we could get back. It’s been very positive this offseason,” Pruitt said during a recent appearance on SiriusXM radio.

“We need to have a really good June and July. I thought we had a great May. Had 55 guys that stayed and went to school in May and participated [in football activities], that’s unusual — that’s a lot. I like our team, I like our leadership and I like where our program is headed.”

You can check out the full clip shared by College Sports on SiriusXM below: