Tennessee football’s 10 coaches who inherited biggest mess

Despite the mess Butch Jones inherited, he left Tennessee football in much worse shape five years later. Remember, Derek Dooley at least left Jones with a solid bit of NFL talent. Jones, on the other hand, left a complete mess when Jeremy Pruitt took over in 2018, and Pruitt is still in the process of rebuilding that mess.

When Pruitt took over, UT was coming off a 4-8 season and its first winless season in SEC history. To make matters worse, Jones was on the heels of two underwhelming recruiting classes in 2016 and 2017, massively underdeveloped talent from what was left of the top five classes of 2014 and 2015 and numerous transfers from all of those classes that left a deplete roster.

Add in the fact that the program’s players had not undergone proper conditioning in three years, and a mass wave of injuries limited what Pruitt could build that first year. Oh, and he was transitioning to a pro-style offense and 3-4 defense.

Because of all of this, the Vols were a favorite in exactly one SEC game through Pruitt’s first two years on Rocky Top. He’s got the program heading in the right direction after an 8-5 season, but he did get a break with a much easier schedule than usual in 2019. As a result, what he does in 2020 is up in the air, but improved recruiting and better development should help.