Following the fiasco that was John Currie’s search for Tennessee’s next head football coach, Phillip Fulmer was put in the difficult situation of finding the program’s new leader in the face of mounting missteps. All things considered, early impressions from Knoxville indicate Tennessee’s athletic director made the best choice possible once he named Jeremy Pruitt head coach.

In his short time on Rocky Top, Pruitt salvaged what could have been a dreadful recruiting class and turned it into one filled with potential impact players. Even more impressive than Pruitt’s recruiting of prospects is the job he managed to quickly assemble a star coaching staff charged with making the Vols competitive again in the SEC.

After evaluating Pruitt’s brief tenure to date, Fulmer expressed his faith in what Tennessee’s new coach has set out to build in Knoxville during a recent appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show.

“He’s exactly what we need, a no-nonsense guy,” Fulmer said during his appearance. “He reminds me maybe of a guy we all respected in little league or high school, or somewhere as a coach that you loved and feared at the same time… You wanted his respect, but you knew if you messed up, he’d put a paddle on your rear.

“Jeremy’s that kind of guy, he’s a no-nonsense kind of guy. He loves to coach football, recruit. He’s been around the program at Alabama, Georgia, Florida State. He’s won at the highest level at all those places, and he put a staff together really quickly.”

Finebaum then asked Fulmer what was it that sold him on the former Alabama defensive coordinator.

“It was his energy. Everything that a coach needs to have done to be a head coach, he’d done it,” Fulmer responded. “He was prepared. His energy in recruiting. He’s used to getting the players Tennessee is accustomed to getting.”

Fulmer isn’t the only one that’s bought into Pruitt, as his vote of confidence has given Tennessee’s new coach much respect from the fan base on Rocky Top. While the job of turning the Vols back into an SEC contender may not be done overnight, Fulmer finally believes the program has the right man to get it back to where it was when he was the head football coach.