Tennessee football: Five best signs from Jeremy Pruitt’s second year with Vols

5. Brilliant use of redshirts

A lot of people don’t talk about this, but Jeremy Pruitt helped offset one major concern surrounding the Tennessee football program heading into this year with the way he used his redshirts. The Vols did not have lots of seniors in 2019, but their few seniors had disproportionately large roles on the team. That was especially true down the stretch.

After all, losing Daniel Bituli, Jauan Jennings, Marquez Callaway, Darrell Taylor, Nigel Warrior and Dominick Wood-Anderson is tough. However, one key thing Pruitt did was redshirt a lot of guys to offset some of those losses. Most notably, Pruitt redshirted wideout Brandon Johnson, who led the Vols in receiving back in 2017. Now, Johnson and Josh Palmer can take over there.

Beyond just wideout, though, Pruitt also smartly redshirted Carlin Fils-Aime, as he doesn’t have proven depth at running back. Of course, Emmit Gooden will be back because he took an injury redshirt, and there’s a chance the same thing applies to Baylen Buchanan. So Pruitt doesn’t really get credit for those two. But combined with the others, his brilliant work doubly-benefitted.

Then there was the transfer of Deangelo Gibbs and the smart redshirting of younger guys. Finally, he had something to do with helping Brandon Kennedy get a sixth-year of eligibility. That was a big deal, as the Vols now have the most loaded line potentially in the entire SEC returning for 2020. So Pruitt’s effective use of the redshirt allowed for lots of returning talent this year.