Following Tennessee’s strong close on National Signing Day, program AD Phillip Fulmer recently got caught getting a little too excited on a hot mic noting “The Vols are back” as the program on Rocky Top finished with a top 10 recruiting class for the 2020 recruiting cycle.

It sounds like Jeremy Pruitt is among those pumping the brakes around the SEC after hearing those comments. No, Pruitt isn’t trying to temper expectations in Knoxville, he’s trying to raise them.

The Tennessee coach has a point, as an 8-5 season isn’t exactly much to brag about in the SEC as LSU and Alabama have both run through their regular season schedules with 12-0 records in recent seasons and Georgia has lost only one game against an SEC East team in three years.

The way Pruitt sees it, it’s about time the Volunteers start handing out beatings in the league instead of taking them.

“I would say for everybody that’s associated with Tennessee, we need to raise our expectations,” Pruitt said during Tennessee’s National Signing Day celebration in Nashville according to 247Sports. “And I know everybody’s excited we went 8-5 and finished the year the right way. But we’ve got to raise our expectations as a program, as a fan base, because the people we’re competing against, they’ve been trying to kick us while we’ve been down, right?

“We’ve been kicked around a little bit. It’s time for us to start doing a little bit of kicking ourselves.”

Just when Tennessee fans didn’t think they could be more excited about the direction of the program on Rocky Top, Pruitt just said exactly what most of the fan base wants to hear.