Jeremy Pruitt on Tennessee’s upset win at Auburn: ‘Our guys are fighting, that’s what we want them to do’
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Jeremy Pruitt just earned the first Southeastern Conference of his head coaching career with a 30-24 win at Auburn, but instead of going overboard with his team’s outstanding effort on the road, the Tennessee coach had his mind on getting his team to play better moving forward.
That should sound very familiar to those that know the coaches Pruitt has worked for over the years.
Immediately after the game, Pruitt was asked to discuss his thoughts on Tennessee’s first conference win since the 2016 season.
“They’ve been doing it all season, they are improving in every game,” Pruitt said. “We are still making a lot of mistakes, aight, but our guys are fighting, that’s what we want them to do. We’ll keep coaching them and trying to get them to execute.”
Pruitt’s quarterback set a new personal record in the game, throwing for 328 yards against Auburn’s defense. It was the first 300-yard game of Jarrett Guarantano’s young career. Tennessee’s coach offered up these comments on his QB’s play on the road on Saturday.
“I thought our coaches on the offensive side put in a really good plan, gave him an opportunity to have success,” Pruitt commented. “He done a good job of executing the plan and our guys protected him for the most part. Our wide receivers played really good out there. It’s a good team win.”
Known for his defensive mind, Pruitt had to have been pleased with that side of the ball on Saturday. Outside of a junk touchdown given up on the final drive of the game, which occurred with only 37 seconds left in the game, Tennessee shutout Auburn’s offense in the second half.
Considering Auburn scored a touchdown on the opening possession of the game and got another one an Anthony Schwartz’s 76-yard catch, the Tigers were held toothless in the game outside of those situations. Tennessee’s defense also intercepted Jarrett Stidham twice in the game and held the Tigers to nine of 16 on third down conversions.
“You gotta give Auburn credit in the first half, (they gave us) a lot of different looks,” Pruitt said. “We didn’t execute as well as we’d like to, in the second half, it was much better. But we have to learn to finish, got to finish, okay. We have to do a better job on that last drive right there.”
Here are some of Pruitt’s comments from his post-game press conference:
Opening remarks:
“We beat a really good football team today. 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. There were times in the game where things didn’t go our way. 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.
“Did some good things in the special teams area to give us a chance against guys that are really good returners. Jarrett (Guarantano) did a good job taking care of the football, thought our offensive staff did a fantastic job mixing it up. I know we didn’t run the ball very well, we’re going to have to improve on that. But we did make some plays throwing the football, I thought we put the ball where our wide receivers could make the plays and nobody else.
“There was a couple of times where we got into a red area, we needed to finish off, put some touchdowns and we didn’t. But it’s a fantastic effort by our guys. Something that we can build on moving down the road.”
On what it’s like to win on the road:
“Let me tell you, this is not an easy place to win. Nowhere is in the SEC. So to go on the road and win against a really good football team in the SEC, I think it speaks to how far we came as a program in the last 10 months. Things didn’t go our way today all the time, but we’re learning to kind of play the next play, not letting the last play have any effect on the next ones. We’re growing up. I think it’s good for our guys. I’m glad for them. It’s good to see the smiles on their face and I hope they get used to winning.”
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
