What Jeremy Pruitt said about the officials, penalties following Tennessee’s loss to Alabama
By SDS Staff
Published:
Saturday was a horrible day for the SEC officials. It started with the Florida-South Carolina game at 12:00 p.m. ET, and it ended with the Tennessee-Alabama game at 9:00 p.m. ET.
Jeremy Pruitt’s team committed a total of 13 penalties for 93 yards during the loss to Alabama; nine of those were called in the first half, and Pruitt wasn’t happy at halftime either.
“It will be real interesting to see what the referees do this half,” Pruitt said at halftime.
One of the first half flags was a targeting hit called on Daniel Bituli, which resulted in an ejection. The officials also inexplicably stopped play on the field in the first half while Tennessee was dialing up a trick play. No flag or violation was called but it certainly stopped the play in its tracks because it tipped the Vols hand.
The Vols were also called for a personal foul on Darrell Taylor on the following play:
15 yards, apparently. pic.twitter.com/O4U52CXv3r
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) October 20, 2019
Tennessee’s head coach was asked about his frustration with the officials and penalties following the game.
“First of all, I will be the first to say that officials have a very tough job,” Pruitt said during his postgame press conference. “This game is going so fast. There are lots of things out there. I don’t know until you watch the tape. But there was a lot of flags. I know this, we’ve played six games and we’ve been the least penalized team in the SEC. And probably got more penalties in the first quarter than we’ve had for an entire game this year. I don’t know. We might be guilty. I don’t know. But we’ll watch the tape and see. If we are, we’ll correct them. If we’re not guilty, there’s not much we can do.”
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
