Each offseason all around the SEC, most fans are obsessed with how many games their team projects to win in the coming fall. While some believe you can only judge a football program based purely on wins and losses, Jeremy Pruitt apparently isn’t in that category.

As Tennessee’s first-year coach continues to rework and rebuild the culture of the football program back to where his AD Phillip Fulmer had it back in the 90s, he acknowledged during his recent stop on the Big Orange Caravan that how many wins Tennessee achieves in 2018 is not his primary focus at this time.

Simply stated, the Volunteers have a huge mountain to climb coming off a winless SEC campaign and facing one of the toughest schedules in the nation in 2018. While it’s clear Tennessee underachieved last season and has more talent than many league teams that came away with conference wins in 2017, the gap between the top of the league and where the Vols currently sit is massive as Pruitt inherits the program.

Closing that gap won’t be done overnight, but instead, will need to made incrementally over time. That’s something Pruitt noted Thursday in Nashville. That’s part of the reason he’s not concerning himself with the number of wins Tennessee earns at this point, he’s still trying to figure out what he has in his players, many of which are just now arriving on campus for the first time after signing with the program in December and February.

Here’s what Tennessee’s coach had to say when asked about fan expectations heading into 2018.

“Everybody wants to ask about a number (of wins),” Pruitt said. “To me, the thing is, when you watch a team play do you say, ‘Hey, when the games over with, that’s my team. I like the way they play. I like their enthusiasm, toughness, their competitive spirit. They play together as a team, never quit.’ That’s what I’m looking for.”

Video exchange of the moment was posted by Knoxville-based WATE sports director Marshall Hughes: