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Tennessee football: Vols managed to be relevant in national championship

By Caleb Calhoun

ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 07: Detail of the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy, along with the helmets of the 2 competing teams, University of Alabama (left) and University of Georgia (right) on January 7, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 07: Detail of the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy, along with the helmets of the 2 competing teams, University of Alabama (left) and University of Georgia (right) on January 7, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images) /
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 Tennessee football has a presence in the national title between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs. Two Volunteers coaches will be on the field.

This isn’t quite the 1977 Sugar Bowl between the Pittsburgh Panthers and Georgia Bulldogs. For those of you who don’t know about that, Johnny Majors was coaching Pitt in that game for the national championship right before he was set to leave for the Tennessee football program.

At the time, Vols fans were sure they made a home run hire and spent that day watching the Panthers win that title by smoking the Dawgs 27-3.

However, 41 years later, Tennessee football fans are feeling something similar. The Vols are coming off their worst season in school history at 4-8, suffered national embarrassment with the administration’s mishandling of the coaching search, and should not be making any news.

But two of their future coaches will have their fingerprints all over this game. Tennessee football head coach Jeremy Pruitt is finishing his final game as the defensive coordinator for the Alabama Crimson Tide. Vols defensive coordinator Kevin Sherrer is finishing his final game as linebackers coach of the Georgia Bulldogs.

Tennessee football fans are expecting this to be one of the most elite duos in the country starting next year. The dynamic should work out given their similarities. But for this game, they go against each other.

If you’re thinking like 1977, you’re probably rooting for Pruitt and Alabama. However, this is Alabama. Nobody on Rocky Top wants to see them win.

But there’s another unique element binding all this together: Nick Saban.

Vols fans love Pruitt because of his results on the field. But as a Saban assistant, he became a much more attractive hire thanks to the success of another Saban assistant, who held the same position as Pruitt before him and is the head coach on the opposing side in the national title: Kirby Smart.

Smart has shown that Saban defensive coordinators from Alabama are good in their own right and can have success as a head coach. Meanwhile, Sherrer has climbed his own coaching ladder, which included years with Pruitt coaching high school football in Hoover, Ala. along with the two working together on Saban’s staff from 2010 to 2012.

It’s been an order of succession at Alabama, with Pruitt working under Smart and Sherrer working under Pruitt. And all worked under Saban.

Now, they’re all on the field Monday night. Smart and Sherrer are on one side, and Pruitt and Saban are on the other. After the game, Pruitt and Sherrer will be fully committed to Rocky Top, regardless of what happens.

Given what he’s already done on the recruiting trail, Tennessee football fans have to be happy. That’s also a testament to the other staff members he brought in like Tyson Helton, Terry Fair and Will Friend. Those guys are already fully on the job for the Vols.

Pruitt and Sherrer have one more day. This makes everything exciting for Rocky Top. But again, unlike 1977, Vols fans don’t have a clear choice who to root for. And their future head coach is not a former Vol who is a current head coach going for a national title either. But hey, maybe this future head coach will have more success than Majors had. We’ll see.

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