Jeremy Pruitt didn’t go off like some expected him to do following his team’s embarrassing 38-30 home loss to Georgia State in the opener. Instead, the Tennessee coach came out and methodically broke down his team’s disappointing performance in the opener, broke down the upcoming matchup against BYU and fielded questions from the media.
Here are the highlights of what Pruitt had to say on Monday after reviewing the Georgia State film.
- on Daniel Bituli’s status for BYU: “Daniel is working hard to get back.”
- Bryce Thompson’s status for BYU: “I still can’t comment on Bryce’s situation.”
- on Jordan Murphy not playing in the opener: “He has been a guy that’s been sick the last week. He should be out there at practice today, he needs to get his weight back up.
- on looking in the mirror: I told the players after the game, we all have Tennessee on our chest, right? What can we do to improve, to be at our best. It all starts with me. So, obviously, on the defensive side, we have got to improve, we have got to execute and we’ve got to be able to make adjustments in the game. I
- on Eric Grey: “He wanted in the game, he wants to play. He did make some guys miss a little bit, he needs to put his foot in the ground and move more north and south a little bit but he showed us what we’ve been seeing in camp.”
- on team’s film study entering the opener: “As far as knowing enough, when you look at our game plan, it was pretty simple.”
- on fans’ disappointment: “I hope they are disappointed because everyone in this building is disappointed. We have to go back to work.”
- on Jarrett Guarantano’s performance: We have to be able to manage the offense, Jarrett put a lot of good plays together… There are plays he likely left out on the field.”
- on the defensive line’s performance: “We had a couple of guys that played pretty well out there. That’s the thing about defense, unless you have some erasers out there that, you have to play together.”
You can watch the press conference here:
Jeremy Pruitt holds his weekly press conference https://t.co/uoIR524393
— Tennessee Football (@Vol_Football) September 2, 2019
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
