Tennessee’s win against Auburn will be judged by perspective
By Dave Hooker
Published:
It will take some time to put Tennessee’s upset win over Auburn in perspective. Did the Vols just beat a team reeling on the ropes of disappointment or did UT actually beat a team with realistic national championship aspirations? Time will tell.
Nevertheless, Tennessee’s fan base deserved exactly what they got on Saturday, which was a monumental win given the current state of the program. First-year coach Jeremy Pruitt didn’t quibble. He wasn’t willing to chalk up UT’s victory to a drowning Auburn football team. Pruitt just savored the win.
“We beat a really good football team today,” Pruitt said Saturday. “It’s like I told them in there, if we learn to execute and raise our level of fight, we’ve got a chance to have a really good football team.”
Pruitt’s optimism was a far cry from the emotions he showed after the Vols’ 38-12 loss to Georgia. After that game, Pruitt seemed understandably lost in despair. The Vols had tried hard, but Pruitt knows that his tenure at Tennessee won’t be determined by moral victories.
It’s worth noting, however, that the Vols have competed against ranked teams in their last two contests. That wasn’t the case not so long ago. UT fought against a better team in the loss to Georgia and actually beat a better team on Saturday against Auburn. Maybe the Vols are better than we thought, collectively. Now is not the time to judge what has happened in Pruitt’s early days. The Vols were winners on Saturday, which gives UT’s fan base reason to believe.
Tennessee athletic director Phillip Fulmer handed the keys of a once well-oiled machine to Pruitt, who had no head coaching experience. It was a gamble, whether or not Fulmer would admit it at the time. Now there seems reason to believe it may pay off.
Despite all of the negativity surrounding Tennessee’s program in recent times, it’s obvious UT’s players have bought in to Pruitt’s ways. There is something to be said for that, especially given Pruitt’s demanding nature.
It would be easy for some Vols to throw in the towel, especially upperclassmen hoping to play professionally. Why wouldn’t a player be jaded after he’s been told “brick by brick” more times than he can remember? These Vols didn’t let those catchphrases become life lessons. They decided they still had time to make their own history.
“There were times in the game where things didn’t go our way,” Pruitt said. “I didn’t think we played very well at certain times in the game, but our guys kind of kept their poise. Fought a little bit harder. They played with a little better technique. We got some turnovers and didn’t turn the ball over.”
Technique and turnovers are fancy talk that can be had for a later day. UT’s fan base will simply savor a scoreboard that finally showed a result in its favor.
The win over Auburn signified that Pruitt wasn’t as stubborn as he had seemed in the early days at UT. The defensive-minded coach allowed his offensive staff, led by coordinator Tyson Helton, to attack the Tigers downfield repeatedly. That’s something fans and analysts had been asking for all season long. Had UT’s coaching staff not adjusted, the Vols would have been talking about another game that slipped away on Saturday.
Pruitt may have shown his best quality in the win over Auburn, his willingness to change.
The Vols tallied 396 yards of offense against Auburn. UT also scored 30 points after amassing just 33 total points in its first two SEC games. Whether it was an overall mindset or something as simple as moving Helton from the press box to the sideline, which the Vols did against Auburn, the Vols’ alterations in their game fit quite well against the Tigers.
Pruitt seems like the tough boss that doesn’t care if he’s the tough boss. That actually seems to be working. UT’s players could have bucked at the new guy. They didn’t. It seems obvious they’ve bought in.
So did the Vols prove that UT’s “back” or simply fortunate? Time will tell.
Dave Hooker started covering Tennessee in 1998. He hosts an SEC radio show out of Chattanooga and covers the SEC for Saturday Down South.
