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Tennessee football: Ranking 10 Vols coaches from other Power Five schools

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Jonathan Daniel /Allsport
Photo by Jonathan Daniel /Allsport /

Tennessee football is on its 11th head coach who played for another Power Five school. Here is how the other 10 Volunteers leaders rank against each other.

As Jeremy Pruitt enters his second season, he is trying to hit his stride with the Tennessee football program. Meanwhile, Pruitt is a guy from another Power Five school the Vols have put their faith in to return them to prominence.

If you look at their history, this is nothing new. Rocky Top has turned to coaches who played at other Power Five schools throughout its history to get its program going. In fact, Pruitt is the second coach from the Alabama Crimson Tide to lead UT.

Although Tennessee football has had plenty of success with coaches who played for the Vols leading them, most notably Phillip Fulmer and Johnny Majors, they have certainly had success with coaches from elsewhere as well. Sometimes, as we’ve mentioned, they come from Rival schools.

But many of their greatest coaches come from big-name schools, and some of those schools were bigger names at the time. That history bodes well for a current Alabama graduate who spent a decade studying under Nick Saban or a Nick Saban protege.

How have these coaches fared, though? In this post, we’re going to break that down with a look at Vols’ history. The Power Five may not have been a thing until recently, but it still is impactful when looking at which schools qualify.

That’s because the Power Five schools have largely played at the same level over the last century. Sure, Penn, Yale and Princeton were much more relevant programs at the turn of the 20th century. But the Power Five schools that are all much more relevant now all joined in on being significantly less relevant during that time.

As a result, this ranking judges how the Vols did with coaches who played at different schools that were on a level similar to them. And some had unprecedented success. So let’s break the down now. This is our ranking of the 10 all time Tennessee football head coaches whose alma maters were other Power Five schools.

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