Tennessee football: Notes from Vols Monday presser after South Carolina loss
Tennessee football head coach Jeremy Pruitt addressed the media Monday after the Volunteers’ 27-24 loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks.
After falling to 3-5 on the season, Tennessee football has one more month left to play to try to reach a bowl game. Jeremy Pruitt addressed the media Monday following the Vols’ close loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks over the weekend and looking ahead to the Charlotte 49ers.
The loss was indeed devastating, but the mood for Pruitt was a bit encouraging. Ahead of homecoming week, he’s clearly moving on, well aware of the shortcomings facing his team throughout this season.
Here are a few noteworthy things Pruitt said from the Monday press conference heading into this game, which should be a sure win. You can take a look at the full video above.
- Nothing to change about play-calling
Some Tennessee football fans were questioning this. However, Jeremy Pruitt was pretty straight forward when asked about his decision to go for it twice on fourth down in the fourth quarter and how he called the game.
"“I think based off of the way the game was going, I would have done everything the exact same way.”"
Yeah, that’s pretty specific. But it also leads to something else of note we could bring up.
- Limited faith in Brent Cimaglia
We know that Brent Cimaglia is a good field goal kicker. He’s automatic this year and has only missed two kicks from beyond 40 yards, one of which was blocked. The sophomore hit a 45-yarder on Saturday. So it was questionably why Jeremy Pruitt didn’t give him a chance to try a 52-yarder against South Carolina in the fourth quarter. But his quotes seemed to suggest a limited amount of faith in what Cimaglia can do from too far out.
"“We were at the 35, and we knew the wind had died down a little bit, but at that point in the game we were either going to go for it or we were going to kick a field goal. We felt like we were a little bit out of his range.”"
- No excuses in loss
This is one of the positives in the game. Jeremy Pruitt was not about making any excuses in the loss. He did note that the fumble by Rico Dowdle that the officials missed was indeed a fumble. However, he defended them and the tough job they have as well, adding there are numerous other things that cost Tennessee football the game.
"“It is an unfortunate circumstance, but the officials had nothing to do with us getting nine penalties, they had nothing to do with us losing the battle at the line of scrimmage, so that’s really only one small part of the game.”"
- More playing time for Carlin Fils-Aime
This was an interesting tidbit. Carlin Fils-Aime, three days back into his new role at running back, had three carries and a touchdown last Saturday. However, Jeremy Pruitt admitted that they still hadn’t used him as much as they want. And he said this week they will probably use him even more, so expect him to potentially become a huge part of the offense going forward.
- Kick coverage is an issue.
This was interesting. We know that Tennessee football struggled on the offensive line, with deep balls from Jarrett Guarantano and on defense overall. But Jeremy Pruitt made a point to call out the coverage in the kicking game in his opening statement, and that was a bit interesting. Look for the Vols to work more on that this week. Here’s exactly what he said.
"“We have to get some guys that do a little better job of going hand-to-hand and not give up one-for-ones down there. Our kickers and snappers have done a really good job, they’ve done a really good job all year. There’s lots of lessons that we can learn, and we’ve got to take them and move forward.”"