Tennessee football: 5 concerning signs for Vols Jeremy Pruitt’s first year

3. Inexplicable clashes with players

Jeremy Pruitt is right to clash with some players as the head coach. Tennessee football needed that after Butch Jones spent five years making excuses for his team and coming up with annoying cliches every time he got the chance.

However, some of Pruitt’s clashes made him look like a first-year head coach. And the most notable one plays right off of our previous slide when we discussed Pruitt not being completely open with the program.

Remember Pruitt’s clash with Quart’e Sapp? Well, he did not come out of that looking good, which we wrote back when it happened. In their loss to the Florida Gators, Sapp left the field. Pruitt said afterward that he told Sapp to leave the field. Sapp denied what Pruitt said publicly. The next day, Pruitt was defending Sapp and let him back on the team.

What coach would put up with being publicly called a liar by his own player and let him back on the team? That would at least require a public apology. Pruitt appeared to be the one who wasn’t fully honest there, and that was a complete mishandling on his part.

There were also instances in which Pruitt went too far throwing his players under the bus. Yes, it was clear this would be his worst team since it was his first year. But he didn’t need to say that after the Florida game. And even if he told the team at halftime against the Alabama Crimson Tide that he would replace many of them with new recruits, there was no reason to air that publicly.

All of these were public clashes with players whom he either lied on or threw under the bus, and that was not a good look. You have to wonder if it will be a habit going forward. Now, Pruitt does also defend his players a lot. But these can’t be recurring issues if the Vols are going to attract top talent back to Knoxville.