Tennessee football: 4 things Jeremy Pruitt has to fix with Vols

4. Jeremy Pruitt cannot make excuses for his program or his players.

This was an issue with Butch Jones from the start. Not making a bowl game his first year should have been a red flag for Tennessee football fans. However, every single year, he had a reason for why they weren’t better.

In his second year, he kept going back to Derek Dooley’s decision to not sign an offensive lineman as a member of the 2012 recruiting class, noting that he was dealing with five new linemen. Then, when things were falling apart his final year, he kept trying to sell how good back to back nine-win seasons were.

And if he wasn’t making excuses, he was selling cliches like ‘Brick by Brick.’ Oh, he also made excuses for the players and failed recruiting classes.

We all remember the ‘Champions of Life’ and ‘Five-star hearts’ comments. Those were just a couple. Simply put, he clearly was not setting a standard everyday.

Look at Rick Barnes right now in basketball. He inherited a bigger mess but never once made excuses for the players. In fact, he has been demanding and refusing to change expectations.

Simply put, Jeremy Pruitt has to set a standard where he does not let players get away with mediocrity, no matter his talent or depth. And to be fair, he seemed to be right on track to do that.

This is a guy who said in his opening press conference that he wants to win every game he plays and will never not expect to win. That’s very similar to quotes Nick Saban gave when he took over with Alabama. And it should bode well for Tennessee football.