Jeremy Pruitt explains importance of simulating real game during Tennessee’s spring game
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The complex and confusing scoring metrics of previous Tennessee spring games are officially a thing of the past. Jeremy Pruitt isn’t making any excuses about the lack of depth he has at any positions this spring, instead, he desperately needs to see what he has from the players he’s inherited on Rocky Top.
During his latest media availability, Pruitt stressed the importance of simulating an actual football game during Tennessee’s Orange & White game. That’s the only way he’s going to know what he has when it matters most before heading to Charlotte for the season opener against West Virginia.
At this point in time, Pruitt isn’t even willing to hand a starting role to a single Tennessee player.
“Every day we evaluate all four groups. We don’t have any starters. We don’t have any second team or third team guys. We have a rep chart. Everything is being evaluated,” Pruitt said. “There is only so much pressure a coaching staff can put on guys to see how they respond in adverse situations.”
Prutt would go on to stress how important it is to evaluate his players when they are put in adverse situations. While he’s not one to hype up his program, he has been recently pushing for fans to show up for the upcoming spring game, not to impress recruits or build momentum with an online hashtag, but to simply help him better understand his players and how they react to playing in front of a crowd following his coaching.
“When you go to a scrimmage, I have seen guys that practice really well, then go to a scrimmage situation so it’s new and they have anxiety so they don’t perform well at the stadium,” Pruitt continued. “You have guys that perform fine in all of the practice situations and then go to the stadium and there is 102,000 people in the stadium and they have anxiety there and they don’t respond in the right way. Sometimes you find guys who rise to the occasion.
“I want to create a game like situation for the team to see who the competitors are. That’s one of the things we talked about going into spring practice, it was finding the guys who love to compete when the game is on the line. The only way to figure that out is to put them in a game like situation and pick sides and let’s go. My goal is to treat it just like it’s a game for us.”
As the new Tennessee coach is willing to admit, everything is new for the Volunteer program this spring — it’s not just new for the players. Pruitt is smart enough to understand the Orange & White game will be his best opportunity to simulate the atmosphere they will see before facing off against a likely Top 20 preseason team in West Virginia on Sept. 1.
“We want to prepare and get used to our expectations because everything is new. Everything is new to what these guys have been accustomed to,” Pruitt concluded. “I don’t want our first time to be when we are heading to Charlotte. We want to get it the way it’s going to be the night before a game. That’s what we are going to do.”
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
