Tennessee football: Vols begin 2018 with more questions than any SEC team
Tennessee football enters a new era under Jeremy Pruitt for 2018. It also means the Volunteers bring more questions than any other team in the conference.
When Tennessee football takes the field against the West Virginia Mountaineers Saturday afternoon, nobody will know what to expect. This is a program that had one of the craziest offseasons you could ask for, and it leaves tons of questions as to how the year will play out.
It’s bad enough that the Vols are coming off of their worst season in history, suffering their first eight-loss year ever and and going winless in the conference for sole possession of last place for the first time as well. Changing head coaches is rough too, which four other teams in the conference are doing.
But when you take everything into account, Rocky Top is in a rockier place than the rest of the conference with its coaching change. And by the way, we’re not just talking about the drama dating back to last year with the almost-hire of Greg Schiano, the firing of John Currie and the hiring of Phillip Fulmer, all before Jeremy Pruitt was hired.
In addition to the bad season and the dramatic coaching change, Tennessee football has to undergo schematic changes on both sides of the ball. Pruitt is bringing back the 3-4 defense that got Derek Dooley fired in 2012. Meanwhile, he brought in Tyson Helton to install the pro-style offense.
Finally, the Vols have had a quarterback battle all offseason, and there’s still no telling who will start. We won’t know until Saturday, and we may not know until five weeks from now. It all depends on how Pruitt and Helton want to handle the race.
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All of these things alone would be enough to question how things play out on Rocky Top. But plenty of teams change coaches, schemes and quarterbacks after a bad season. Pruitt’s arrival, though, throws another wrench in the process.
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Of the five teams with first-year head coaches, the Vols are the only team with a guy who has never been a head coach at any level. Pruitt was never even a head coach in high school. The only other head coach in the SEC with no head coaching experience at the FBS level is Joe Moorhead of the Mississippi State Bulldogs. But he takes over a program in good shape and won big at Fordham.
Moorhead’s predecessor, Dan Mullen, is now with the Florida Gators and is not only a proven head coach at this level. He’s a proven head coach in the SEC. Then there’s Chad Morris with the Arkansas Razorbacks, who turned the SMU Mustangs into a winning program again. Finally, you have the Texas A&M Aggies, who now have Jimbo Fisher, a national championship winning coach.
If a conference could undergo a more successful round of coaching changes than the SEC did in 2017, it would be a miracle. Tennessee football is the only program with a head coach who is not almost a sure bet to work out. By the way, even with all that, Pruitt somehow has the most confidence of anybody in the league.
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The Vols will enter Saturday with nobody knowing what to expect. We have less on them than any team in the conference. However, it does make for a lot of excitement on Rocky Top. And it should give the players, and coaches, something to prove.