5. There’s not much Missouri film study for Jeremy Pruitt to go on.
Obviously, the Missouri Tigers have a brand new scheme with Eliah Drinkwitz taking over for Barry Odom. Drinkwitz’s system is a departure from what offensive coordinator and former Tennessee football head coach Derek Dooley had the past two years, so all the Vols really have to go on is what he did last year with the Appalachian State Mountaineers.
Given the fact that Drinkwitz was in the Sun Belt, that’s still not much to go on, although they did at least blow out the Georgia State Panthers 56-27. Remember, Georgia State beat Jeremy Pruitt’s team in last year’s season-opener. Anyway, beyond that, all that’s left to go on is what Mizzou did last week against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
How do you gauge a team’s strengths and weaknesses along with a coach’s tendencies in handling those strengths and weaknesses based off of one game and that game being against Alabama? Nick Saban’s teams over the past two years have taken average to below average opponents completely out of their element, and that’s likely what happened last week.
As a result, Rocky Top almost has nothing to prepare for. Pruitt and his staff do know Mizzou’s talent given previous years, they do have a history fo Drinkwitz’s coaching at other schools and they do have last week, but none of that offers proof of what they’re going to do. They could really shock the Vols early with all of these unknowns.