Jeremy Pruitt’s character quickly turned into one of the biggest stories from Day 3 of SEC Media Days after two former standout Georgia players called into question Tennessee’s decision to hire the former Alabama and Georgia defensive coordinator.

If you missed it, the story began with Aaron Murray sharing his thoughts on the Pruitt hire at Tennessee. Based on his comments, it’s clear Murray is in the wait-and-see mode when it comes to Pruitt.

“I don’t know if his personality is fit to be a head coach,” Murray said to ESPN Radio The Game in Nashville on Tuesday. “As a head coach, there’s so many things that go into it. It’s not just going out there and coaching. You have to deal with front office. You’ve got to go talk with the president of the university. You have to deal with boosters. You have to deal with the offense, the defense.

“It’s not just going in there and dealing with the kids and scheming up. There’s a lot that goes into it. I don’t think he’s the right guy to kind of be the CEO of a corporation. He’s really good managing just a defense and being a defensive coordinator. He needs to prove to me that he can handle the whole ship. For right now, I don’t think he can. We’ll see what happens this year. I don’t think it helps that he doesn’t have a lot of talent at Tennessee.”

Those comments were later mocked in tremendous fashion by SEC Network host Paul Finebaum.

The story could have died right then and there but gained more traction once former UGA All-American and now SEC Network analyst David Pollack chimed in with his negative comments on Pruitt.

“To address Aaron’s (Murray) comment — because I think it needs to be addressed a little bit — the stories that I have heard and some of y’all have heard that came out of Athens – that are true, (from) coaches that were on the staff, some of the things Jeremy Pruitt did to Mark Richt, some coaches would tell you are the most disrespectful, most crazy things they heard,” Pollack said on the set of “SEC Now.”

Of course, Pruitt wasn’t the only coach to descend on Atlanta for SEC Media Days on Wednesday. His former boss, Alabama head coach Nick Saban, also attend the event. Considering Pruitt is most associated with Saban, after working together for nearly a decade in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide coach was naturally going to field a question about the controversy.

Here’s what Saban had to say regarding his respect for Pruitt after working with him for so many years.

“I can only speak about the experience I have with Jeremy Pruitt. I wasn’t with him at Georgia, so I can’t make any comment about what happened there, but he did a fantastic job for us,” Saban said. “He was always very respectful, very loyal. Hard-working. He did a fantastic job with our players. Our players have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He was always fair and honest in his approach in terms of how he did things. I have never seen that style.

“It’s really surprising to me to hear people say that, because I’ve never seen it. That’s not to say that didn’t happen, but I don’t know that. I can only judge people on how they treat me and the job they do for us. Jeremy Pruitt did a fantastic job for us.”

Video of the exchange has been posted online by Marc Whiteman of  WATE 6 ABC in Knoxville: