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Tennessee football blame pie: Who’s most responsible for Vols 1-3 start?

By Caleb Calhoun

GAINESVILLE, FL- SEPTEMBER 21: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers looks on during the first half of the game against the Florida Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on September 21, 2019 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
GAINESVILLE, FL- SEPTEMBER 21: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers looks on during the first half of the game against the Florida Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on September 21, 2019 in Gainesville, Florida. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images) /
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We dish out blame for each Tennessee football loss. But who’s most at fault for the Volunteers falling to 1-3 on the season? Here is our ranking of that.

As Tennessee football heads into its bye week, it’s safe to say the start of the season has been a complete disaster. In fact, it may have been the most disastrous start in the history of the modern era of the program, and that includes the 0-6 start under Johnny Majors in 1988.

The Vols are 1-3 with two losses to Group of Five programs at home, including a Sun Belt team that was 2-10 last year, and a 34-3 loss to the only Power Five team it has faced. and they have still not beaten an FBS team.

Having those things on the resume are worse than usual, and Jeremy Pruitt’s second season on Rocky Top has somehow seen a major regression. But what caused it, and who deserves to share in the responsibility for it?

After all, Tennessee football can’t be worse across the board than last year’s group that beat two top 25 teams, one on the road, can it? They aren’t loaded with elite recruits, but there is still some talent in the system.

In this post, we’re going to try to break down who is most responsible for the Vols’ horrid start to the year. The best way we can do it is similar to how we do our blame pie for each loss they have individually, but we’ll do this one as a slide show to rank the groups responsible.

We have found six specific things we can identify, with two things combining for 10 percent at five percent each, making for five slides worth of call-outs for what has caused this start. The good news, if there is any, is that some of this is getting better, and some of it is also correctible.

However, the bad news is there is no reason to believe it will be corrected yet. So who is at fault for what has happened so far? Where should we dish out the blame? Let’s break it down now with our look at the people responsible for Tennessee football starting the season 1-3.

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