Jeremy Pruitt asked if he expects to be back at Tennessee next season
Has Jeremy Pruitt done enough to return to Tennessee next season?
Vol Nation appears to be split on that question after Pruitt’s latest team finished the season with a 3-7 record after losing to Texas A&M 34-13 in the regular season finale.
After the game, during his postgame press conference, Pruitt was asked if he expected to return to Tennessee in 2021.
“Yeah, I think absolutely,” Pruitt answered. “You look over the first two years we were here, where we were at when we got here. I’ve said it before, from personnel, culture, what we’re building. And I get it, 3-7 is not where we want to be right? But there’s one thing that I can say, I can lay my head down on my pillow every night and know that I’ve done everything that I could possibly do to make sure that we protected everybody in our program.
“We’re looking for a competitive edge. There’s lots of things that we didn’t know about (regarding COVID), if we were going to have a COVID season again, I probably would be a little more prepared to handle it. But I get the business, I understand.
“I look at our football team we’ve got a lot of really young players on our team. Most of our team will be back. I think it’s a very good indication of how they compete every week. These guys don’t quit. They believe in what we’re doing, and they understand that we’re not that far away.
“A lot of these guys I think they choose to be a part of the solution, not the problem. If you look at our team last year, we won, I guess, seven out of our last eight games. We barely won most of those games. With exception of UAB, all of them were a one-possession game. And a lot of the guys on our team were part of that.
“So they understand that there’s not much difference in this league, our margin of error is very small, and we know that as a staff so we’re, we’re working hard to improve it.”
I think he can turn it around if he can find a QB. UT needs 1 more victory to join a very exclusive club. With 1 more win they will have 850.
Fulmer should give Pruitt a lifetime contract. He’s building a culture— probably botulism.
Nice day out today. Take a hike.
The coaching change every 3years isn’t helping anything.
Mullen and fisher are doing well in their 3rd year but they have been head coaches b4… If we wanted a quick turnaround we should have hired a seasoned head coach instead of coordinator.
Fire Pruitt now and tell the next candidate you have 3 years to win the east. Good plan
They also had something to work with, and while Pruit may have had some talent, it’s not as much as Mullen and Fisher.
Mullen didn’t start out with top tier talent but he’s a proven head coach in a great recruiting state
Proven champion, that Mullen
What like Mike Leach?
Tennessee has opened an inquiry in their own recruiting practices. Would this be the way to get rid of Pruitt without paying the buy out?
That’s what I’m thinking. If you could fire him for free, then I think we would pull the trigger.
Source? Not heard this…
I am leaning toward him coming back. Not a great game against A&M, but UT fought hard. The recruiting news is concerning, but so far there is nothing proven yet.
The problem with the coaching job at UT is the fan base still thinks it’s the 1990s. UT is battling USCJr and Mizzou to be daddy of the bottom half of the East. Champagne expectations with Butt Lite results. Like Matt Jones says, UT has joined Nebraska in the land of broken dreams.
Truth
You left Little blue and Vandy out of your statement.
Like Pruitt or not, that’s a complete assclown question to ask at an open press conference.
Agreed, but Pruitt should have treated it like an ass clown question instead of justifying what he’s done
I think we should be freezing at this point… Pun intended.
Freeze is a phony and a cheat. If the pressure got to him at Ole Miss, UT would eat him alive. He bought Ole Miss players with prostitutes, are the Vols that desperate? Surely, if it’s that great of a job, you could find a young up and coming coach and give him time, just like the Cats have done. We have virtually no tradition and are climbing steadily up the ladder. Our AD isn’t perfect, but pushed the right buttons most of the time.. and Barnhart was a UT man years ago..Fulmer and Pruitt need to be shown the door and start over.
There are probably 4 or 5 coaches in the country who could come in and have us competitive in year one. That being said, if we don’t indentify and hire one, we have really placed having a winning program in the back burner.
Well, we’ve tried hiring the nice guy (Dooley) and simple (Pruitt) coach and they’ve not worked out well. The two used car salesmen (Kiffin/Jones) did the best. One ran away, and the other was blessed to bring in players that made it look like he had a clue as to what he was doing that finally unraveled.
Look, KY has been consistently better than they’ve ever been. But I don’t want TN to ever be happy with successful mediocrity. Just being above .500 and making a bowl game is not successful. Having a shot at the playoff is the new standard for a good team.
I’m all for Tennessee competing in the SEC again, and they need to hire a coach who has proven they can win. If we don’t, then we’ll probably find ourselves renaming Neyland stadium to ‘Food City’ stadium so we too can get some extra money to fund our athletics.
To me, they don’t look ready to play. I can name 3 players that get personal foul penalties almost every game (Trey Smith, Jeremy Banks, Deondre Johnson). Johnson and Banks just seems like an out of control thugs on the field. The defense looks good stopping the run, but hell, when you can throw the ball all over the field you don’t have to run. I swear my grandmother could put up 300 yards against UTs DBs. Pitiful. That touted o-line may be just a little better that usual but that’s it. Poor clock management, play calling, passing defense, and penalties have cost UT many games. Pruitt needs to go.
Well we fired an OC (Eddie Gran) that turned down UGA because we aren’t satisfied with successful mediocrity. UT shouldn’t be either. Our staff consistently takes guys no one else recruits and they become NFL talents. Benny Snell, Josh Allen, Bud Dupree, Zadarious, etc. We are a QB and two WR away from getting an East title with a solid program in place. Very few coaches can legally turn a program around in a season, especially ones like UK with no tradition. UT can do better than what they have but the whole program is shaky now.
Well IMO I don’t think Pruitt has the right coaching staff. They could play great one game, and in the next, look horrible. I am not a fan of Chaney. He is overrated and out of date in his play calling. Plus Tennessee QBs look the same all year. Piss poor coaching IMO. They need a solid OC/QB coach that knows how to coach up QBs.
Georgia never extended offer. So how did he turn down something that wasn’t there?