College football is currently the midst of an NCAA “dead period” in terms of recruiting. Meaning, college coaches cannot meet with or host recruits on campus during this time period. While coaches are allowed to have limited contact with recruits, such as phone calls, text messages and direct messages on social media, these dead periods are some of the slowest times of the year on programs’ recruiting calendars.

The current NCAA dead period in recruiting ends at the end of July.

While Tennessee and head coach Jeremy Pruitt may not have the option of visiting their top prospects at the moment, the Volunteer coach got creative to let several of his program’s top targets know what the Tennessee brand could do for them. Like all college coaches, Jeremy Pruitt cannot publicly mention a recruit’s name until they have signed their scholarship papers. During his appearance at SEC Media Days last week, here’s how Pruitt got around that rule.

During his speech, Pruitt listed out several cities he’s seen the power of Tennessee’s reach extend into and interestingly enough, after mentioning several in-state cities of note, he listed out Atlanta (where several of Tennessee’s commits and targets hail), Charlotte (home of five-star athlete Quavaris Crouch), Huntington, West Virginia (home of five-star offensive lineman Darnell Wright) and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (home of four-star pass rusher Khris Bogle).

Tennessee’s official Twitter account even highlighted that segment and repurposed the clip:

It was a clever move by Pruitt and well within NCAA recruiting rules to mention towns without giving away any specific prospect he was referencing. One of Pruitt’s main attributes listed when he was hired at Tennessee was his ability to connect with recruits. That was put on display during his first appearance at SEC Media Days and if it works, will be viewed as a genius move by the first-year Tennessee coach.