Tennessee football head coach Jeremy Pruitt inherits a team coming off its worst year in school history. Here are four things needed to fix the Volunteers.
Things could not have gotten worse for Tennessee football this past year. The Vols had their first eight-loss season in school history, as they fired Butch Jones in the process. But after a fiasco of a coaching search that involved the nixing of Greg Schiano and the firing of athletic director John Currie, the program has gone in the opposite direction.
Rather than make a splash hire, Phillip Fulmer took over as athletic director for stability purposes and went for a line of scrimmage guy. As he noted in the press conference, Tennessee went 0-8 in the SEC this past year, and six of those losses were to former defensive coordinators.
So he clearly had a focus on what he wanted when finding the guy to replace Jones, and Alabama Crimson Tide defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt fit that mold. Pruitt is the anti-Butch Jones in so many ways.
For starters, he has coordinator and SEC experience, something Jones never had when the Vols hired him. However, he has no head coaching experience, something Jones did have. And finally, his experience is on the defensive side of the ball, while Jones’s forte was always offense.
Being the anti-Jones, however, is not what will win you games in the SEC. Pruitt has to bring his own strengths, and he has to be able to fix the issues that the Vols had under Jones.
As a result, we’ve come up with a clear list of things Pruitt needs to do to make sure Tennessee football is restored as a program. For some people these things are obvious.
So let’s look at the biggest issues that hampered the program under Jones. These are the four things Jeremy Pruitt must do to fix Tennessee football going forward.