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

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images
Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images /

3. Tennessee football coaches need to be better at in-game adjustments.

This is a huge one for the Vols. Butch Jones openly refused to believe in in-game adjustments, and it cost him dearly far too many times. Preparation is still important, don’t get me wrong.

But Tennessee football has got to be able to adjust better in games. The Vols lost three of their four games in 2015 simply because they did not adjust to what the other teams were doing.

That carried over into 2017, when the Vols lost to the South Carolina Gamecocks and Kentucky Wildcats for the same reasons.

Then there are issues of in-game coaching. We know of those. That’s part of in-game adjustments. But the failures of the Florida Gators game in 2015 and 2017, the decision not to go for two against the Texas A&M Aggies in 2016 and countless other mistakes cost the Vols with Butch Jones.

Pruitt doesn’t have to be a perfect in-game coach. Heck, Nick Saban himself is actually not the best at that.

But he needs to be significantly better than Jones was. If not, the Vols will continue to struggle as a program.

It only gets more crucial with the SEC East set to be much better. Kirby Smart now has the Georgia Bulldogs rolling. Dan Mullen will do the same with Florida very soon.

And Barry Odom has figured things out with the Missouri Tigers, while Mark Stoops and Will Muschamp are developing solid programs at Kentucky and South Carolina. The East is now loaded, and with the added fact that Tennessee football faces the Alabama Crimson Tide every year, Pruitt can’t mess up his in-game coaching.

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