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Tennessee football: Vols 5 best seasons with second-year head coach

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images
Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images /

Jeremy Pruitt enters 2019 still trying to rebuild Tennessee football. Here are the Volunteers five best seasons with a second-year head coach.

As Jeremy Pruitt enters his second year with Tennessee football in 2019, Vols fans will be watching. In the past, a coach’s second year is often the barometer for whether or not they will have a successful run with the program.

Bob Stoops, Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer and Gene Chizik won national championships their second years with the Oklahoma Sooners, Ohio State Buckeyes, Florida Gators and Auburn Tigers respectively. That should give you an idea of second year coaches rebuilding a program.

Even on a lesser scale, though, Nick Saban won the SEC with the LSU Tigers and then went undefeated in the regular season with the Alabama Crimson Tide. Kirby Smart took the Georgia Bulldogs to the national championship game. Pete Carroll had the USC Trojans in the top 10 and coached a Heisman Trophy winner his second year there.

Simply put, you can see a significant jump with good coaches usually in their second year, even if it’s not a national championship. But to be fair, every situation is unique. And Pruitt is in a unique situation with Tennessee football.

Still, what have second year head coaches done in the past with the Vols? In this post, we’re going to break that down. These seasons will tell you if that second-year rule is an indicator for coaches on Rocky Top or not.

Our criteria is pretty simple here. What are the best seasons the Vols had in with a head coach in his second year on the job full-time? Record, wins and championships are the factors when it coms to ranking the season.

What we will do, however, is analyze that coach’s career on Rocky Top and determine if that second year was indicative of the rest of their tenure with the Vols or not. Maybe the second-year rule doesn’t always apply.

So who made that crucial second-year impression? Which coaches had it prove something for their futures as well? Let’s break all of that down here. These are the five greatest Tennessee football seasons with a second year head coach.

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