Tennessee football: Jeremy Pruitt talks recruiting DBs
Jeremy Pruitt’s speciality is coaching the secondary. Tennessee football’s head coach talked about evaluating defensive backs for the Volunteers.
As he rose through the ranks from director of player development to position coach to defensive coordinator to now Tennessee football head coach, Jeremy Pruitt has always been proficient in coaching one area: defensive backs. His track record in that are is incredibly impressive.
When he was coaching the Alabama Crimson Tide’s secondary under Kirby Smart and Nick Saban from 2010 to 2012, Pruitt helped them produce arguably the greatest defense of all time and win back to back national championships. His stops with the Florida State Seminoles and Georgia Bulldogs before returning to Alabama all tell the same story.
According to Patrick Brown of GoVols247, Pruitt is the de facto cornerbacks coach even with Tennessee football right now. Brown’s article reported on a conversation Pruitt had with 247Sports Director Barton Simmons about what he looks for in when recruiting defensive backs. In typical Pruitt fashion, he values versatility over anything else.
There are three key things, though, for today’s defensive backs. He said they have to be able to play man-to-man, they have to be able to cover the deep part of the field and they have to be athletic. Pruitt noted that he can evaluate a player’s athleticism even if they play another position, which is how he could recruit a running back to play defensive back. Here’s a bit of what he said.
"“It’s why I love recruiting guys that are used to handling the ball on the offensive side, whether it’s kick return or wide receiver, quarterback, running back, because it’s 100 percent, you can go back and check, the guys who intercept passes on Friday night, they intercept them on Saturdays. The guys that don’t (on Fridays), they don’t (on Saturdays).”"
Obviously, size and intangibles are important too. When evaluating size, that includes height, hand size and length. Simmons then posted a video on Twitter of Pruitt talking about his ideal defensive backs. He named two players he coached: Jalen Ramsey with the Florida State Seminoles and Minkah Fitzpatrick with the Alabama Crimson Tide. Here’s the video of that conversation.
Today we're talking the DB class on 247Sports. I sat down with Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt to talk about how he evaluates the position and he gave some really good stuff. pic.twitter.com/S3UbGpG4eK
— Barton Simmons (@bartonsimmons) May 15, 2020
Obviously, Ramsey is a bit of a sore spot for Tennessee football fans since he is from the Nashville area and didn’t end up in Knoxville when Derek Dooley was head coach. However, Pruitt reminding people that these were the guys he developed is obviously refreshing for fans on Rocky Top.
Simmons also posted a video of Pruitt being able to recruit guys at other positions. One player stood out in particular on that front: Johnathan Abrams, once a three-star safety who committed to the Georgia Bulldogs when Pruitt was defensive coordinator there.
This was a great story from Jeremy Pruitt on the evaluation of S Johnathan Abrams. He would go on to be a first round pick out of MS State but when he committed to Pruitt at Georgia he was not considered a no-brainer prospect by most. pic.twitter.com/NDBmhvqqkH
— Barton Simmons (@bartonsimmons) May 15, 2020
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What’s clear with Pruitt, going back to what we originally said, is he loves versatility. He has said that when it comes to linebackers too, noting that he likes guys who can play all four linebacker positions in his 3-4 scheme.
That’s likely why Daniel Bituli, Darrell Taylor and Nigel Warrior were so successful this past year. Warrior is a safety, but he can move over to nickel whenever needed. Pruitt used Bituli at inside linebacker, but he was recruited as an edge rusher. Darrell Taylor, meanwhile, was recruited as a defensive end but used as an outside linebacker. It clearly all comes back to versatility.
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As more of Butch Jones’ recruits graduate, Tennesee football will likely begin to use more guys like Bituli, Taylor and Warrior. Pruitt’s recruiting has shown that he is trying to go for that level of versatility everywhere. For instance, cornerbacks Bryce Thompson and Alontae Taylor were both athletes in UT’s 2018 class. Look for more of that to be the case in the future.