Tennessee football: 5 possible reasons Vols OC hire has taken so long

4. Power players keep blocking Jeremy Pruitt from his top choice.

Given the two most prominent names who have emerged at separate times for the Vols, this is a very real possibility. And the unfortunate thing in both cases is that Jeremy Pruitt could have missed out on a big splash hire.

The first is Hugh Freeze. Tennessee football would have had a huge get in Freeze if they could have brought him to Knoxville, and his style is a perfect fit for the personnel on the Vols. However, his past with the Ole Miss Rebels and the paper trail showing his connection to an escort service could have been too much for power players to accept.

Freeze has now taken the head coach job with the Liberty Flames. However the next top guy on the list has been Kendal Briles. An offensive genius, Briles’s offenses never failed to score under 30 this year with the Houston Cougars. His problem? He was mentioned in the civil lawsuit filed against the Baylor Bears related to the school’s sexual assault scandal that got his father, Art Briles, fired. Kendal Briles was an assistant there at the time.

After the way fans revolted in 2017 against the hire of Greg Schiano, you could see some boosters and administrators getting in the way of Pruitt making either of these hires. As a result, there’s a chance he’s been blocked from getting his guy into Knoxville twice, and it could be setting him back significantly.