New coach, same results for Tennessee as the Volunteers won’t be going bowling this postseason.

After claiming his team would be playing for pride this week leading up to the Vanderbilt game, Jeremy Pruitt’s squad didn’t show much of that on the field, losing to the Commodores 38-13 in Nashville. Following this result, the Vols drop to 5-7 on the season.

Immediately after the game, Pruitt offered up this thought on his team after his first season on the job.

“Lord knows, we have a long ways to go. I think our kids improved as the season went on,” Pruitt said.

Opening comments:

“I think it’s pretty simple. The best team won today. They blocked us better than we blocked them, came off the block better than we did and they played better at wide receiver. They got off the field on third down and we didn’t. it’s pretty simple. We have a long way to go. I think our kids improved as the season went. We had a couple kids that got injured late that I don’t think helped us down the stretch. I think Vanderbilt deserved to win they outplayed us.”

The Tennessee coach following up that comment by answering the following questions from reporters.

on the offensive play calling:

“I coached against this same offense last year and we used the same calls we used today.”

“The play-calling was no different than it has been all season.”

on the poor finish to the season:

“Call it what you want to we ain’t finished well in November in a long time.”

on his recruiting pitch this offseason:

“I think if a young man wants to play in the SEC really early, this would be a good place to start.”

on Kyle Shurmur:

“He got the ball out of his hands and made a couple good throws. They took what we gave them and allowed their guys to make plays. We didn’t.”

on offensive scheme not working up the middle:

“We’re banged up at wide receiver. We tried to keep a plan we could execute. If you throw the ball down the middle you have to protect a little bit. We tried to get the ball out of our quarterbacks hands.”

on finishing:

“This is my first year here and we did really good the first couple weeks of the season. Today we didn’t execute very well defensively. You have to give Vanderbilt credit and we have to tackle the guys. We have to play football.”

on the loss:

“Lack of fundamentals on both sides of the ball, that’s coaching. Probably not giving our players a better chance to have success. It is what it is. They got off the block and made plays, we didn’t. They caught contested balls, we didn’t. They tackled in open space, we didn’t.”