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

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 08: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers brings his team onto the field prior to a game against the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers at Neyland Stadium on September 8, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennesee won the game 59-3. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 08: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers brings his team onto the field prior to a game against the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers at Neyland Stadium on September 8, 2018 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennesee won the game 59-3. (Photo by Donald Page/Getty Images) /
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2. Two wins over Top 25 teams

Jeremy Pruitt may have gone 5-7 his first year as Tennessee football’s head coach, but he managed to do a lot of things that very few coaches have done. One of those was winning two games over Top 25 teams when they were ranked his first season.

The Vols upset the Auburn Tigers on the road and then the Kentucky Wildcats at home a month later. By the way, neither were flukes in the moment either, as UK finished in the Top 12 with a 10-3 record, and Auburn did go 8-5 and just finished outside of the Top 25.

No other current head coach in the SEC did that their first season, including the elite ones of Kirby Smart, Dan Mullen or, yes, Nick Saban. Going national, Dabo Swinney didn’t get his second win over a ranked team until his 30th game of his career.

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And in Vols history, only Bill Battle and Phillip Fulmer had multiple wins over ranked teams their first season. Battle inherited an SEC Championship team, and Fulmer inherited a program on the rise after four straight Top 25 finishes, two SEC titles in the previous four years, three Top 10 finishes and a Top 5 finish in 1989. Pruitt, as we have already mentioned, inherited a mess and still scored these wins.

Even more impressive was he had a road win over a Top 25 team, something Saban didn’t do until his fifth season as a head coach and not until his third season with the Alabama Crimson Tide. Kirby Smart didn’t do it until his second season, while Swinney did it his first full season but a year after serving as an interim coach for seven games. So being able to do this bodes well for the future with Pruitt at the helm.

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