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

2. Regression at the end of the season

This one’s pretty obvious, and everybody saw it. Tennessee football showed signs of development midway through the season, and then they got inexplicably worse as time went on. The lack of progression reflects on coaching.

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You would think that the Vols had turned a corner after their win over the Auburn Tigers. There was no shame in losing to the Alabama Crimson Tide a week later. The same was true with a close loss to the South Carolina Gamecocks.

But right after that, they looked horrible in a win over the Charlotte 49ers. A rebound over the Kentucky Wildcats to get to 5-5 made it look like they were truly trending upward, though. Then the final two games happened.

The Vols lost both games in blowout form, to the Missouri Tigers and Vanderbilt Commodores. That’s inexplicable for a team that had two Top 25 wins, and it raised numerous questions about the consistency of the program under Jeremy Pruitt.

Can Pruitt coach his players to handle success? Were their Top 25 wins just major flukes? Did they not care to go to a bowl game? How could they look so horrible in three of their final four games of the season?

These are all questions that we have to ask, and they don’t paint a pretty picture. Other teams got better as the season went on, and the Vols are known for what they do in November. But they got worse over time. It almost made us forget their two Top 25 wins. So going forward, we need to see them consistently trend upward as the season goes on.