Even by SEC standards, the fall of Jeremy Pruitt was stunning
Sept. 24, 2020.
It was 2 days before the delayed start of the 2020 season when Tennessee announced that Jeremy Pruitt received an extension from athletic director Phillip Fulmer. The deal was through the 2025 season (Jan. 31, 2026), and it included a buyout just south of $13 million. At the time, it wasn’t met with criticism. Pruitt had just finished Year 2 in Knoxville on a 6-game winning streak. This was the guy who was not far removed from being considered one of the favorites to replace Nick Saban at Alabama someday, so it wasn’t deemed a reach to extend Pruitt.
Jan. 18, 2021.
It took 116 days for the SEC to chew up Pruitt and spit him out. One 3-7 season, one internal investigation into recruiting violations and 0 buyout dollars later, Pruitt is gone at Tennessee. From boasting the nation’s longest active winning streak to firing a head coach in 4 months seems like a different sort of collapse.
That doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the fact that last month, Fulmer delivered this infamous assessment of Pruitt:
Phillip Fulmer: “An interesting statistic that i found, Coach Majors was 14-15-1 in his first 30 games and Coach Pruitt is 15-15 in his first 30 games”
“I really think we’re a better football team than our record has shown”
— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) December 3, 2020
Let’s move beyond the absurd realization that Fulmer had to look up stats to justify that Pruitt was doing just fine, and that 6 consecutive double-digit losses for the first time in program history weren’t the more relevant stat for the Year 3 head coach.
Regardless of whether you thought Pruitt would replace Saban, what happened to get us to Monday still remains baffling. We watched someone go from one of the top up-and-coming SEC coaches at a traditional power to getting fired in less than 4 months.
And perhaps even more mind-blowing was that the news of Pruitt’s firing itself didn’t necessarily come as a shock. Once it was reported on the day of the 2020 regular-season finale that Tennessee was conducting an internal investigation into Pruitt, was there anyone who thought he’d overcome that after a 3-7 season? It certainly didn’t seem like it. The only potential holdup could have been whether Fulmer would be fired as well.
The Knoxville News reported that Fulmer is stepping down, though not as a result of the investigation. The report said that Fulmer wanted his successor to hire the next football coach.
Good luck with that.
Once upon a time, it appeared that Pruitt was on his way to rising above some rather pedestrian expectations after a handful of other candidates publicly turned down the opportunity to replace Butch Jones. Well, they either turned it down, or they were like Greg Schiano and Mike Leach, who found out that they no longer had a job to accept. It fell to Pruitt, who had moments when it didn’t seem like it was his first FBS head coaching gig.
Remember when he beat a ranked Auburn squad on the road in Year 1? Remember when Pruitt’s Vols stomped a top-15 Kentucky team a month after that?
I mean, 3 months ago, Pruitt boasted an 8-game winning streak dating to a “closer-than-the-final-indicated” loss to Alabama in 2019. Three months ago, Pruitt led No. 14 Tennessee into a matchup of unbeatens against No. 3 Georgia as just a 12-point road underdog. And he had a halftime lead! After that, his team was outscored 229-86. Well, in games that weren’t played against Vanderbilt.
How does that happen? You can’t just chalk that up to playing during a pandemic and dealing with depth issues. Players and coaches stopped responding to Pruitt.
After that blowout loss to Kentucky, which was the Cats’ first win in Knoxville since 1984, Pruitt fired co-defensive coordinator/defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh. That was after Brumbaugh had been with the Vols for 4 games. Somewhere in that 2.5-year stretch, Pruitt’s staff turnover should’ve been a major red flag:
The staff turnover Jeremy Pruitt has had at Tennessee in just 29 games is mind boggling.
2 offensive coordinators
2 defensive coordinators
3 RB coaches
2 Co-DCs have left
2 special teams coordinators— Adam Luckett (@AdamLuckettKSR) October 19, 2020
It’s different if you’re getting coaches plucked off a championship staff like Alabama. Pruitt finished his 3 years in Knoxville with a 16-19 record. He had more home losses to Sun Belt teams (1) than he had wins against Tennessee’s 3 major rivals (0). Shoot, Pruitt had as many home losses to Sun Belt teams as he had losses to rivals of less than 20 points (1).
But Pruitt didn’t just get fired because he didn’t live up to his word to recruit well enough to never get embarrassed by Georgia again. He didn’t just get fired because of his laughable comment after a 31-point loss to Alabama that Tennessee was “closing the gap.” And amazingly, Pruitt didn’t get fired because of his Year 2 home losses to Georgia State and BYU, which were well in the rearview mirror by the time 2019 ended.
Pruitt is out of a job because in Year 3, he lost total control of the program. He showed he had no idea what he was doing at the quarterback position when he stuck with mistake-prone Jarrett Guarantano deep into the season. His halftime adjustments yielded a 108-point second-half deficit during that 6-game losing streak. He watched his team get blown out in the second half against an Arkansas team with a Year 1 head coach who entered the year with a team simply trying to win its first SEC game in over 1,000 days.
Tennessee can claim it fired Pruitt because of recruiting violations. Consider that another example of him not having his affairs in order. I’ll instead consider that the ace-in-the-hole that just saved the Vols nearly $13 million. Much like Jim McElwain when he was fired with cause by Florida for faking death threats in the middle of a disastrous 2017 season, Pruitt provided an excuse not to warrant a Year 4.
It remains to be seen how the severity of Pruitt’s violations will impact the coaching search and what’s in store for the Vols beyond 2021. We don’t know if Greg Sankey would cite that as a reason to block a hiring of Hugh Freeze, who was at the center of recruiting violations at Ole Miss. We also don’t know if Freeze or Tennessee natives Jamey Chadwell and Billy Napier would have interest in the job with that NCAA cloud hanging over the program.
If there were indeed Level I violations discovered as ESPN reported, that changes how this job will be viewed. When Freeze’s NCAA violations put Ole Miss on a 2-year bowl ban with a loss of scholarships, it was the result of 15 Level I violations.
This search has plenty of moving pieces, though even under NCAA investigation, it shouldn’t be quite as chaotic as the 2017 search that landed Pruitt in Knoxville. According to Bruce Feldman, Peyton Manning will have “a big role” in the search for Pruitt’s successor. I’d love to know what those conversations consist of.
“Hey, want to come to a place where we can make extensions and buyouts disappear? Come to Rocky Top!”
Pruitt’s fall should serve as a reminder that extensions and pandemics aren’t excuses when it comes to deciding to get rid of a head coach. Put together a 3-7 season with 7 double-digit losses and you can watch even your most loyal and powerful supporter sheepishly step down at season’s end.
Pruitt didn’t make good on Fulmer’s investment. Had Pruitt successfully done that, Lord knows we’d be talking about the Tennessee hype train ramping up for 2021.
It took 116 days to turn that into a pipe dream.
The Buffoon in Winter.
Wouldnt mind keeping Steele as HC
Slapping the interim tag on him doesn’t sound like they want him in the big chair. Now Tennessee has to find a coach that is fine with being saddled with Steele whether they like it or not. The Steele hiring is backwards IMO and not something that helps sell the program to too many Head Coaches. They may end up with Steele when no one else takes the job. Either way is not a good look for the program.
Steele has been in the sport for a long time and has been a good DC and recruiter. If you cant get Freeze you keep him, he played at Tennessee and he seems like a great leader
Agreed, hope we hold on to Tee and Jay
I think Steele is a burnout. I know college football has changed over the last decade in that an explosive offense can take the top off a great defense. Steele has looked “lost” on the Auburn sideline in the last couple of years.
Actually he is not a good recruiter. He has an abrasive personality and does not like interference from head coaches.
I’m not taking opinions on Kevin Steele from an Alabama fan who hates Auburn
Have you looked at the points scored on Auburn’s D in the last couple of years? Steele is supposedly one of the best in the business. I don’t hate Auburn. I just like our team to beat them.
@sds1967 You mean like holding an unprecedented LSU offense to 23 in 2019? Keeping UGA below 30 every year? Holding Bama to 14 in 2017? Two pick sixes to beat Bama in 2019? Keeping Deshaun Watson and Clemson to around 20 or less two years in a row? He’s had his share of bad games against top offenses (2018, 2020 Bama, for example), but who hasn’t? Venables did vs Ohio State this year. UGA did vs Bama and UGA this year, LSU last year, etc. Bama does seemingly every time they play a halfway decent Ole Miss or Auburn team. Steele is a good defensive coach. Then again, so is Pruitt, and we saw how that worked out.
Auburn had the best defense in the SECW in 2019, and second only to UGA in the whole SEC. I don’t know where sds1967 is getting this “last couple of years” nonsense from…
Steele would drag UT down lower than they are now.
Unless a miracle happens, he’s most likely going to be a true Vol who’s going to manage the ship til you find your next manager. He’s come back home to you to do for his alma mater what needs to happen to help you get back relevance. So I’d hope that Vols get behind him, not cut him down, and let him do his best while your new AD (whomever that is) starts the process of accessing what the program needs to do. Could be Steele in the end. At Mizzou, Barry Odom took us out of 2015. And it does piss me off to see the constant swipes within our fanbase at him. They’re not deserved, he did his best, he wasn’t the guy.
True, but he didn’t have to accept the job or the money either. Why did he think he was ready?… when he was so far from ready. A coach that’s ready knows how to turn two SEC Championship appearances into more than Odom did. Where is credit due? In Odom’s high IQ in personal relationships with players. He disarmed
a destructive contingent of athletes by focusing on a quality personal experiences. That’s not going to jump re-start the SEC Championship but it’s going to limit how many things have to be fixed by the next coach, who should have been hired in winter after Odom’s first HC season, if not right after Pinkel. I do think Odom will have some success at Arkansas, but like Kuligowski and Steckel, Odom is not a complete defense guru.
I have to believe that Steele was hired to attempt to keep some of the recruits believing in Vol football. Tennessee needs a young/energetic/offense-minded head coach to run the program.
Steele had success at S.C. when Spurrier was there. When he was at Clemson W. Virginia hung 70 points on Clemson. His time at Auburn was as good as his talent level, but his head-coaching record is not good. At Sou. Miss I believe they went 0-12.
Every time we beat Tennessee they fire their coach.
because losing to kentucky in football is unacceptable
So you’ll be firing the next coach next year then. Cool.
We’re passing on the escalators. We’re headed up, Y’all going down to the cellar to spend some quality time with your Nashville cousins.
We’re putting you back in your sad little hole where you have never and will never win anything
10-3 (‘18), 8-5 (‘19), to 5-6 (‘20)? UK headed up? That escalator going north is broken.
sds our program direction is a one-way ticket north, our record was bad this year, but next year could very well be 10 wins, compared to where we were in say, 2015, we are miles better, and will continue to grow.
sds 1967.. I rooted for your elephant asses but you can lick our Wildcat tails. When Saint Nick leaves and you hire a couple of Shulas and whoevers we’ll will kick your asses too. Be happy for your success but we are building a program the right way, the least you could do is admit it.
BlueMan, I was commenting on the two cocky UK fans above. In all honesty since UK is in the SECE, I don’t pay them much attention. I couldn’t even name who your QB was this year (without looking up) even though Bama played UK this season. I do think that Stoops is a good coach though.
@sds1967 Yeah, except Kentucky played an all-SEC schedule in 2020. Doesn’t really count. If Kentucky had just matched their 2019 win total this year under a regular season, that would be considered moving up.
You mean like all two times?
Amazing how much UK fans have to stretch to gather accolades for their football program.
Stick to your basketba…..oh yeah. Never mind that too.
So strange, seeing UK hoops such a mess. Don’t understand it, to be honest.
The game is starting to pass calipari by. I have never seen the fan base so torn apart. The post game press conferences are a circus and Cal looks and sounds like he’s lost his mind.
I’m personally sick of Calipari. If he were a good coach, he would’ve won at least 3 titles at UK now. And he’s paid nearly as much as Saban, which is crazy. He can develop talent, but that’s it. He only relies on talent. I want him gone personally. If he refuses to change, then UK needs to part ways. He’s starting to damage the program’s image.
LOL
Kentucky trash talk, lol. “We still beat your as* at (no contact sport) basketball!”
4 wins against Tennessee football since 1980. Whoa!
Talk crap all you want, but our football program is in a much better position than yours now. Ours went from historically bad to pretty decent, yours went from #1 in the late nineties to a dumpster fire today. SEC’s Nebraska
Talent wise, not really. Also, if I was a betting man, my money would be on Tennessee beating Kentucky this year.
Well Connor I think you are wrong. based on the news conference that just ended the firing had nothing to do with his record or performance. It really sounds like it is all about the out of control recruiting. I think that will be evident when the actual details of incidents and violations are made public. Until then everything is just conjecture.
LOL. Delusion is spelled H-I-L-L-B-I-L-L-Y.
Now we know why you post dumb sh*t everyday. You cant even spell!
Stop responding to him and maybe he’ll go away.
they cleaned house. waiting to see how many more get canned. Besides Pruitt, Niedermayer, Felton and like 7 other staff members. Waiting to see if weinke and tee get canned.
I’m waiting to see what these Major Violations in recruiting are. A few months ago…the Vols were getting many, many Five ***** kids to commit…wonder how ?
Major recruiting violations. Look for a post season ban IF and thats a big IF they even win enough games
It sounded like the source for the accusations was internal. I’m sure if he was winning more, these violations would have never seen the light of day.
The only reason this wasn’t swept under the rug by Fat Phil is because he was desperate for a way to fire Pruitt and not have to pay the insane buyout he stupidly gave Coach Potato Head.
What’s truly funny is The Great Pumpkin being forced to retire for the embarrassment of it all when he’s the one who went forward with the investigation, and the idea that guy, whose been looking over Pruitt’s shoulder the entire time, had no idea what was going on is laughable.
You want to know the source? He’s big. He’s fat. He once stabbed Johnny Majors in the back.
Better watch out corch they said UGA was next.
Your opinion of internal accusations fits to a Tee.
You are correct, media members mentioned they think somebody inside wanted him gone.
Fuzzy,
Serious question:
In listening to the presser:
1.Do you think Fulmer had ANY knowledge of this?
2.The administration at UT seemed genuinely shocked at the level and amount of the violations in addition to what amounted to a coverup from compliance department. Do you think they really didn’t know.
Curious as to what you think.
I dont know anymore than the next guy. I am not and do not know an insider. i dont think he knew about anything.
I also dont know anyone in admin but they did sound genuine. I dont think they knew either.
Anythings possible and this could be a huge cover-up using pruitt as a scapegoat but that sounds ridiculous to me.
You cant stop idiots like corch from spewing ignorance.
The administrative obviously thinks there was a cover up in the recreation office. All were fired. And most of them were very young.
I am a little surprised that Pruitt didn’t hire more experienced and trust worthy people to run this. This is a very vital spot in the organization. Harsin brought his most trustworthy guy to head our recruiting spot.
I am going to guess that Pruitt may not have direct involvement but its on his watch and he is responsible for the assistants practices. Fulmer is laying on his sword because this is guy and it happened during his tenure. Fulmer just took an extension this fall, so he can he say its time to retire??
Let’s hope it goes better this time. Knoxville in the fall is one of prettiest places to watch a game.
You all destroyed better
I can’t proofread or this device of mine sucks.
You all deserve better
Maybe the news of the recruting issue sprad internally causing some of the issues??
Josh Pate, has since your post, made allusions that’s he seen or heard what the offenses are as well as Mark Nagi. Both believe them to be serious enough that a 2 year bowl ban is coming. After the BS Mizzou went thru with the NCAA, I root for anyone going against them. This is a great opportunity (lemons to lemonade) for UT to get it’s house in order. You’ve heard my stick before so no need to beat it.
Anyone remember that Aaron Murray said that Pruitt was in no way to ever be considered head-coach material ? Lots of knowledge in that statement.
But EVERYBODY said after they beat us and went on a 6 game streak that Pruitt was the 2nd coming and TENN Was BACK! TENN is “The Meat Grinder”. Hugh Freeze is sitting back in the mountains around Lynchburg,Va saying NO Way I’m going there because life is good. Happy Hunting.
Bcreek, at least we aren’t the team that got destroyed by TN two seasons in a row, no matter how bad we were. Freeze, would accept in a second if offered. Don’t think he wouldn’t.
Y’all will learn to hate the next one you get too.
bcreek you are right about one thing. After beating the chickens and mizzou most vol fans thought we were going to do well. if you admitted it you probably thought the same thing. Who wouldnt. Freeze aint coming because he wont get offered. I will still offer up a bet we win an sec or natty before SC ever does.
I’m not sure why you’re trashing UT when SC didnt even win its first bowl until the 90s and you have no national titles
At least we know we’re bad. It’s just hilarious that y’all don’t know how bad y’all are that it takes a 3rd party perspective to tell you.
Best pay attention to your own dumpster fire.
How many coaches have y’all had in the last 10 years…3-4?
Bcreek…please remember that your AD Ray Tanner gave that huge buyout to Muschamp and also gave him five(5) long years to prove again that he could not coach a Pee Wee team. How do like your new head coach, Shane Beamer ?
That’s a shame.
Also, when will Paul Finebaum get around to apologizing to Aaron Murray, who was 100% correct about Jeremy Pruitt?
Honestly, who cares. I respect the time Mr. Finebaum has put into reporting the game but I find myself not going to him for much anything. If anything cudos to Aaron Murray on not beating around the bushes.
And the dumpster fire that used to be Tennessee football continues
90Dawg, its ok, we’re used to actually used to chaos here in an attempt to do something. UGA is still choker U. See you on the bball court where we’ll embarrass you..lol
An attempt to do something? Yeah that’s a good one. No proven coach in their right mind would take that job now with Level 1 violations sure to bring probation/sanctions/loss of scholarships and a delusional fan base that thinks Tenn is relevant.
And no matter what happens in bball, Tenn football will still be a dumpster fire.
Y’all still play hoops in that gym named STANKMAN Coliseum? What a dump.
People post and joke about dumpster fires a lot, but the Tennessee football program truly is one. What a mess!
I think of the past few years as more of a tire fire in Knoxville. You can put an end to a dumpster fire with enough effort – flaming tires, you really just have to let it burn itself out. God’s honest truth – some tire fires have smoldered for a decade or longer. Sound familiar?
That’s the best info anyone has posted on this site in a while!!
Always amazed at how much joy some people get out of people losing their job. Wives and children’s lives uprooted.
I hate it for anybody that loses a job or has to deal with a set-back in their career
but let’s get real – these guys are literally making millions to coach a child’s game. We’re not talking about teachers or police officers making $40k. Or, waitresses working 2-3 jobs, 60-70 hours a week for $10.00-$12.00 an hour
If Pruitt has saved and invested just 10% of what he’s made since his days as an analyst at Alabama then he is a rich man today.
Agree. I don’t feel sorry for him. He has millions and family won’t be hurting.
Agreed re: Pruitt. If it were me, I’d buy a houseboat in Amsterdam and never worry about anything again.
I would too
I doubt Pruitt is moving to Amsterdam. Wasn’t he confused about what brussel sprout was, I.something really ignorant like that?
Not feeling bad for him is one thing. Taking joy in his demise is another.
I suppose he deserves to be fired. But why are so many posters overjoyed about it.
What did he ever do to them?
JTF….Pruitt not only was a horrible head coach, but he has Tennessee embroiled in a major recruiting-scandal that will have NCAA implications: Loss of scholarships/Bowl Ban/??? So he hurt the future of the Vol program in a big way….and true Vol fans will never forgive that. As a Dawg fan, if he’d done the same to Georgia would you be so forgiving ? The answer is No Way !
I’m not even talking about Vol fans.
It comes with the territory. If they are good at their job and didn’t cheat, they won’t have any trouble finding work and getting paid well for it.
Amen
He is a human being and yes I feel bad for him to a point and his family. Aaron Murray was right as was another former UGA coach I know that warned me about Pruitt. It was a desperation hire that went badly. Just thankful his contract was peppered with just cause language so that UT doesn’t have to pay him.
Pruitt needs bama rehab at this point
I bet that former UGA coach was at Mark Richt’s house the night Pruitt showed up in his front yard, yelling at him to come out and fight ;-)
It wasn’t desperate, it was poorly executed. Leach or Sciano would have been better hires and we’re ready to come.
Malzahn must be one of the luckiest coach to get the huge buy out without any problem. Did Auburn every try to do something similar to what Tennessee did to get no buyout due to wrong doing by Pruitt?
*ever
I seem to recall before the 2020 UGA-UT game some chatter about UT having a great O-line, being a contender in the SECE, they would beat UGA etc etc etc etc
Last year just before the UT game, there were some very immature Vol commenters going crazy on SDS.
Very rude and nasty comments. One of them posted as Jeremy Pruitt. Haven’t seen him since the game ended.
Yeah we are all fans,, and love our programs.. No need for personal attacks and fowl speech aimed back and forth.. Enjoy the season and sportsmanship…. Respect
Agreed
Must have been SCar fans with the fowl language.
I wonder if Cristobal will try to lure him out west. He’s in the hunt for a DC. That would make two fired SEC head coaches on his staff.
I knew fat Phil was source of trouble with UT.
OK so instead of hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL yet another time, now it’s hard boot time. Fulmer wise to step down. Hoping Randy Boyd and Donde Plowman get a better outcome.
All nastiness aside (you know who you are) its been a really rough 15 or so years for those of us who bleed Big Orange. Despite rivalries, having Tennessee back to powerhouse status benefits the conference.
Excited for the current basketball season, hoping it becomes a special season.
I don’t think Ut will be powerhouse anytime soon. Sc, ky, miz, Vandy are looking to feast on you.
Fulmer was hired to put out the fire. The result is the fire was never put out, and it is now burning even hotter. And the NCAA is about to come down hard. It will take years to clime out of the hole that Fulmer has created.
Yet, somehow, Fulmer gets to ride off into the sunset, as if he has no fault in the result. I wonder if he will have a significant part in picking Pruitt’s replacement?
And the coaching carousel in the age of Saban continues.
Coach Saban cannot be blamed for everything. If other programs want to be competitive…hire the right coach and upgrade your facilities and you might have a small chance to be competitive.
Personally I think they have done this to undermine him and save the buyout money. I also think they have Steele in mind for the new coach. If not why bring him there as they knew when he got there that they were going to fire Pruitt. Personally I hope they do hire Steele. If so they will not be a problem until they fire him.
Cant anyone come up with anything better than “Dumpster Fire”? Everyone has rode that one till the wheels have fell off.
See above for my explanation of why a tire fire as a better analogy.
You’re right on Mountain Dog. As Cousin Eddie would say, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Radioactive tire-fire meltdown.
Yelp… if they get hit with major sanctions then adding the radioactive would be appropriate.
Hey I’m on now to help my blue brothers. So sad Mr. Potato Head is gone.. yes UK is on the way up and UT, UGA, UF and all the East can be seen from our rear-view mirror soon. Wishing UT kept the turmoil going for another year but hey, go ahead and get Freeze now while you can. Can’t think of another coach and fan base that deserve each other more than these two!
I think you are on the opposite end of the scale from Paris10.
SDS must have booted Paris to the moon. What an idiot.
Goat Rodeo? Chinese Fire Drill?
Chernobyl…….UT Style. They didn’t just mess it up for now, they messed it up for the next 100 years.
Tennessee is an absolute dumpster fire at this moment.
Corch did your ex ole lady bang someone from TN? I’ve never seen someone so fascinated by TN stories before. You legit comment the same thing over and over on every single TN story. We get it, she got some good D in Tennessee and you’re miserable.
I doubt I’ll live long enough to see who wins that bet
Do any of you girls ever proofread your texts before or after hitting the ‘Publish Comment’ button?
As I mentioned in a previous discussion, I am a graduate of the same high school where Pruitt coached in the Mid-2000’s. I cringed when I saw his portrayal in the MTV reality TV show “Two-a-Days”. When he was hired to be Alabama’s defensive coordinator, I was worried he was in over his head.
When he proved to be a competent assistant, I was pleasantly surprised. But according to the Peter Principle, some folks cannot successfully make the transition to head coach or head of any large organization. Briefly touching on politics, Jimmy Carter was a successful Georgia governor but arguably a disaster as President of the United States.
I’m a longtime Alabama fan, and remember well the deer in the headlights look Mike Shula showed on the sidelines during his short-lived tenure as Crimson Tide head coach. Everyone now in the conference is chasing Nick Saban’s shadow, hoping that hiring off of his coaching tree will secure big wins. What people often forget is that Bear Bryant’s coaching tree didn’t secure all that many gridiron successes as head coaches as one might think.
You can name Gene Stallings, with one National Championship to his credit at Alabama. You can name Howard Schnellenberger at Miami. You can name Danny Ford at Clemson.
But, as I said, if we are using winning a National Championship as our measuring stick, especially at a school like Tennessee who expects to win one nearly every year, can you name other truly successful coaches in relatively recent history who were Bear’s boys? Not Bill Battle. Not Sylvester Croom. Not Jackie Sherrill. Not David Cutcliffe. Not even Ray Perkins, who had the unenviable job of succeeding the Bear himself at his alma mater. You might argue Pat Dye makes the best case, but he never won a National Championship, either.
Auburn has taken a very different approach in their latest hire. Others schools, Tennessee included, are going to have to decide for themselves whether they are inclined to keep chasing the Saban tree or think outside the box.
Good post, not very many coaches know the football universe well enough to teach it to anyone else. The recruit rating social club is painfully devoid of a measuring stick. Far far smaller % of media get it right and it’s their job to find all the data. Then there is the universe of “what’s entertaining to say today”?
What’s your idea about Pruitt going back to coaching defense somewhere next? I’m asking you because you referred to his production in high school and maybe you saw some common traits that transferred to college coaching?
I think he would be a fine defensive coordinator or other assistant within the conference or another Power 5 conference. Truthfully, the MTV reality TV show during the period when he was a high school coach made him look kind of like a silly rube. This was a guy who started out teaching elementary school kids.
He may have grown into his Alabama job. Saban is not just an excellent teacher of players, he’s also an excellent teacher of other coaches. So I think Pruitt has room to grow.
All of this could not happen to a better team. Good ole Sloppy Flop. May it take them a decade to dig out of this mess.
The “Major” as in “Johnny” at Tennessee is the day that Phillip Fulmer stepped on campus. He is a “loser” as a man, with NO integrity, and not very smart. He is a back stabbing low life and deserves any and every punishment a UT Graduate should receive from The University of Tennessee. He should be barred from ever stepping on campus for life. All he has ever wanted is to further himself in every action he has ever done at UT. rsk 1968 UA graduate