Will Jeremy Pruitt survive the offseason at Tennessee? Paul Finebaum shares his thoughts
It wouldn’t be a college football offseason without some drama on Rocky Top.
That’s the sad reality of Vol Nation as each and every offseason seems to bring some level of angst and this offseason is no different as nearly everyone is predicting the end of the Jeremy Pruitt era will be coming in Knoxville sooner rather than later.
Of course, this is far more than speculation at this point as Tennessee is currently under investigation with Saturday Down South’s Matt Hayes reporting that the school is investigating Pruitt’s program in the hopes of discovering enough to fire the program’s head coach for cause.
Why would Tennessee do that? The logic here is simple, if Pruitt — or one of his assistants — broke serious NCAA rules, Tennessee wouldn’t owe the coach any money for firing him and could avoid another large buyout.
While he wasn’t asked directly about the ongoing investigation going on at Tennessee, Paul Finebaum was asked about Pruitt’s fate during his latest appearance on Birmingham-based WJOX 94.5 FM program The Roundtable on Monday.
Will Pruitt survive the offseason at Tennessee? Here’s how the SEC Network host responded.
“It’s seeming to be more unlikely by the day. And that is a story that comes and goes off the radar screen like a bad storm but all signs are pointing toward him heading toward the exit,” Finebaum answered.
Tennessee is coming off a 3-7 season with Pruitt’s overall record at 16-19 after three seasons on Rocky Top.
Pruitt, like those before him at Tennesssee, are trying to live to a standard that few coaches can achieve. Can he succeed at Tennessee? Time will tell, but changing coaches ever 3 years will keep Tennessee in the searching mode for years to come.
Problem is Tennessee has been hiring guys who aren’t able to. Kiffin, had he stayed, potentially could have done it. He just had that momentum. Dooley, Jones, Pruitt just were not good hires. All forced because of poor decisions and a poor handling of the process at all levels. And I’m not a big Kiffin fan but I think he has the makings of a good coach in the right situation. UT mimics Nebraska in many ways on how they’ve gone about things. Someone there needs to start formulating a long term plan instead of just adding ingredients to pot and hoping.
Hiring lawyers to dig up dirt on your head coach is a huge, inferno of a red flag for any future coach Tennessee would like to hire. Fulmer has cemented his reputation as a backstabbing weasel. No one in their right mind would commit career suicide by agreeing to work for this two-faced fatty.
Yes, a very poor tact to take. Future coaches will want compensation in advance to take that into consideration.
A lot of you Tenn fans may not like Pruitt now, but you need to think back a little. He took the job. You went through multiple candidates and finally found someone who said yes. He may not be perfect, but you have to ask yourselves, is firing him at this point best for the program? Another fired scapegoat might make you feel better but Tenn is in disarray. Need to put your heads down and start working to support the program. What 5 star player in their right mind would want to be a part of this never ending trainwreck until you stabilize and allow football to build again without tearing it down?
16-19 after 3 years is hardly encouraging to me, even in Covid era. Investigation only complicates matters. Yes, Fulmer goofed with the extension. Doubt there were tons of schools clamoring for him to be Their coach.
Hire a PROVEN head coach.
No proven head coach wants to be around you idiots.
Anyone from Alabam calling anyone from TN an idiot is rich. Look up the education rankings for each state. Oh-at least the university has football and a connection to the Wuhan lab they tried to cover up. Bama academies try to catch up to the rest of the world and unleash a pandemic, lol.
Tenn went through I believe 7 “experienced” head coaches who all told them to take a hike. Tenn Needs stability. Fans need to realize the mess they have created for the program. the SEC needs Tenn back to prominence, but it won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen in 3 years. What reason would high level talent have to go to Tenn at this point? The last 10+ years have been a slow train wreck. Get your expectations in line.
This is the epitome of fact, by a dawg mind you (no harm intended 90Dawg). Dumpster fires don’t exactly scream ‘STABILITY’, to coaching candidates or recruits, right? I’m actually getting to the point that I question whether the SEC or even the east need us. The ship has to be righted. I don’t think Pruitt is the man for the job, but SOMEONE (ANYONE!!) needs to douse the dumpster fire.
It’s the fan’s fault. Too funny. So fans are to blame for success and failure and not coaches. Tell me how many universities allow the fans to recruit and coach?
brokeback, i believe you’re missing the point. i don’t believe 90dawg is suggesting that you should be pleased with the 16-19 record. rather, the tn fan base and admin need to take a step back and realize the damage you guys are currently creating is only exacerbating the problem there. it was a mess when pruitt signed-on. this backstabbing by the admin and continued inability to accept a realistic future for the program will only continue to cut the program further down.
tn needs to sit on their hands and either let this extended contract run it’s course or at least give it two more years with some kind of undeniable public vote of confidence in the interim. unfortunately, this public statement should come from the chancellor and not fulmer, as no one outside of vol diehards trust him.
Actually what they need to do is what Texas did. Publicly support Pruitt and in the background start the process of deciding who they want and how they’re going to go about getting them. They need to get rid of Fulmer and bring in an AD with the credibility to sell a coach on the list they’ve come up with that UT is about righting the ship. That AD also needs to get the boosters in line and not working against each other. They need to not rush to and accept coaches they would otherwise not pursue (look at last 3) but rather position themselves to be ready for when the opportunity presents itself to go after one that they want.
NO proven HC is going to jump in that dumpster fire. Why would they?
This seems an awful lot like cutting your nose off to spite your face. I guess the boosters are tired of paying buyouts, but this won’t help the program in any way.
so its better to retain a coach who very clearly cannot get it done. Ok so we should promote him as having the full backing of the AD, admin and fanbase (that wont ever happen). Then do what next season? Fire him? Why is that better? Sure if he was to win 7-8 games next season then ok but what is the likelihood of that happening. You mentioned previously about how bad LSU performed this season but the fans are clearly behind him or not calling for his head.. Something like that. But dont you think winning a natty last season has everything to do with that? What if LSU finished 7-5 instead of winning that natty. then went 3-7 this season. What would be the opinion of LSU fans in that scenario. Sure changing coaches every 3 years or so is not helping but keeping a coach for 4-5 years after 3-4 years of failure isnt helping either. Its a no win situation we are in at UT. I am confident the only way pruitt gets fired is if the investigation turns up something. Barring that he will return next season and we will likely endure another crappy showing and then he will be canned. if he gets canned this season then landing a high caliber coach may prove quite difficult. Unfortunately this is the roller coaster we are on.
fuzzy, the powers at be at tn made this bed. i think they’d be best to continue to lie in it, rather than throw it out the window right now. as i said in an above post, i believe tn would be best to either let the current extended contract run it’s full course, or at least not doing anything for the next two years, but continue to show a public support for pruitt.
if it doesn’t work out, so be it. tn would have a much easier time finding a respectable, desired replacement two plus years from now than this or next year.
the tn admin and fans need to remember how many rejections pre-dated the pruitt offer and acceptance.
P you may be right but I, like many other vol fans, just have a hard time seeing the upside to keeping him. You may be correct that finding a replacement HC of quality will be difficult but that is no guarantee and I wouldnt rule out an interim HC for the 2021 season either. Again the only way he goes away is if he gets caught up in the investigation. I challenge any reasonable SEC fan to say they would want to give their HC another year or two after having the same 3 seasons Pruitt just completed. If youre being honest most will be ready to move on. Tn just makes it more head scratching because our coaching searches are abject failures of lore that will be talked about and compared to for decades whenever a coaching search goes awry anywhere.
That’s right you terrible fans-Liberty can have a good football program, but you just need to sit on the worst coach in the SEC. This is your fault. Great logic.
So FuzzyVol, start with hiring an AD who is a proven powerhouse. Don’t rush to hire a coach but rather build to that situation. Pruitt isn’t going anywhere but neither does UT have to lie in the bed it’s made. UT can start following the steps so that you can move Pruitt out and bring in the right coach. The fanbase losing it’s mind during each hire looks bad nationally but is not the reason for the poor hirings. The machinations of the boosters and the administration are. You need an AD to pull that together. And to think at one time I saw Fulmer as a potential positive.
I am not advocating keeping him. I am saying that if they want him gone, then they just need to fire him. If there is dirt on Pruitt, I’m sure he would gladly accept a settlement. If he is clean, they need to come up with $13 million.
I agree and many think a settlement negotiation is going on behind the scenes. Pruitt hired a lawyer and that would not surprise me but it also depends on the extent to which he could be implicated. While I have a hard time thinking he would have knowledge of payments to players, anything is possible today, and I found I am a bit naive about the integrity of recruiting.
A head coach at Tennessee that produces a winning record will not have to worry about being fired. Dooley, ole Butch, Pruitt ? There must be a good head coach out there, somewhere that can produce positive results in Knoxville. The program’s bleeding & tough decisions must be made to right the ship. Tennessee fans deserve a winning program.
Tennessee fans don’t deserve squat.
But bama fans do???? Remember Mike Price? Before Saban came Alabama was a shell of itself just like UT is now. If your over 30 then I know you remember when 3rd Sat. in Oct meant something. I say bring in Jeff Fisher. He wants the job so why not. He would not do worse then Pruitt
They deserve football. It’s all that state has.
thig…Don’t worry…we’ll keep beating em.
I’m old enough to remember Butch Jones having back-to-back nine-win seasons, with two wins in a row over UGA, wins over Florida, a second overtime loss to Oklahoma, a second overtime loss to #8 Texas A&M… I know Jones looked bad at the time, but Pruitt’s record makes his look incredible.
two wrongs dont make a right
If you guys run Pruitt off you know you wont have to go thru that fiasco you did last time when Pruitt was hired .Jeff Fischer already said he wanted the job.
Fisher would not be a good hire. No college experience, past his day, it would not be good.
I remember Bill Battle having a pretty good record, except he couldn’t beat Bama and was fired. No one wants to join that dumpster fire with unrealistic expectations and an administration that will hire lawyers to try to find dirt on their own coach to keep from having to pay a contract.
Bill Battle was fired because he took an excellent program and and turned it into a below average program. Look at his record each year. It steadily went down hill. Coach Battle was a fine God fearing man….which is the most important thing in the grand scheme….but, he was not a top drawer SEC head coach.
I thought it was a mistake to fire Butch Jones. He had good recruiting classes and the teams were mostly competitive. The Vols sent 10-12 players to the pros while he was coach.
Pruitt had one big win, at the barn but overall I think he is a downgrade. If they want to turn things around they should can Fulmer and give Pruitt a free hand without booster interference for a couple of years. That’s just me. They will probably bring in Fisher and handcuff him instead.
4-8 was such a good record. Butch deserved another year after going winless in conference. Your state needs education funding so badly.
That’s funny.
How about that Vol “hiring freeze” ? Hmmm…Head coach in waiting ?
I think a bigger issue is the turnover we have had with the number of University Presidents we have had, along with turnover in the Chancellor position at UTK. It’s hard to have stability anywhere when there is little stability at the top. I do agree that changing coaches every 3 to 5 years isn’t going to work. I also don’t think next year is already a lost cause(I know – my Orange colored sunglasses). We have talent at WR, RB, and the OL. With decent QB play, our offense could be pretty good. I’m a little more concerned with the defense. Yes, we have talent, but the DB group is thin and starting to lose more players to the portal. It is also an area where didn’t address the needs in recruiting. We also seem mystified by the slant pattern. I certainly don’t expect to challenge for the East next year, but I think we could start climbing out of the depths we are in now.