Tennessee football: Bryce Thompson leaving will test Jeremy Pruitt’s credentials

The Tennessee football Volunteers are losing Bryce Thompson to the NFL Draft.

Tuesday morning put a stop the small wave of good news surrounding Tennessee football personnel that began on New Year’s Eve. UT is about to lose its best defensive player so far in the Jeremy Pruitt era.

Defensive back Bryce Thomson announced that he was going to forgo his senior season in 2021 and enter the NFL Draft. Thompson was a three-year starter at cornerback with the Vols and earned Freshman All-American honors in 2018.

Once a four-star athlete out of South Carolina, Thompson finished his career with eight interceptions, including three in one game in 2019, one pick-six, two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, eight pass deflections, eight tackles for a loss, two sacks and 100 tackles, 72 of which were solo. He announced his decision to leave Tennessee football on Instagram.

Thompson’s departure, while expected, becomes very concerning for the Vols. UT’s secondary was historically bad this past year and has struggled since Pruitt arrived when the 5’11” product of Dutch Fork High School in Irmo, S.C. was not starting at cornerback for any reason.

This dates back to the beginning of 2019. Thompson was suspended for the first two games due to an off-the-field issue, and UT fell to 0-2 with two upset losses at home, getting torched by the Georgia State Panthers and suffering a busted coverage against the BYU Cougars. Once Thompson came back, they finished the year 8-3 and didn’t lose to any other unranked teams.

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A huge reason for the Vols’ defense struggling this year was the fact that Thompson was limited at times due to injuries and had to move over to other positions, such as safety and nickel, because of key players being out. That proved devastating.

Without him, Pruitt is now on notice. When Phillip Fulmer hired Pruitt in 2017, it was specifically due to his defensive credentials. The strength of those credentials was coaching the secondary, which was a part of Pruitt’s entire college coaching career.

However, Pruitt hasn’t proven himself to be able to lead an elite pass defense without Thompson while head coach of Tennessee football. Whenever the Vols did have a successful secondary performance, Thompson was always in the game.

As a result, 2021 will test Pruitt’s defensive credentials like never before. Remember, he got his first defensive coordinator job with Jimbo Fisher and the Florida State Seminoles, and it was because of how great a job he did as the Alabama Crimson Tide’s defensive backs coach from 2010 to 2012.

After helping FSU win the national title, Pruitt became the most sought-out defensive coordinator in the country specifically due to his skills in coaching defensive backs. That’s why Mark Richt brought him to the Georgia Bulldogs for two years before he went back to Alabama.

Derrick Ansley was hired by Pruitt to become the Vols’ defensive coordinator in 2019, as Pruitt decided to relinquish play-calling duties on defense. That’s fine, but Ansley is also a coach whose credentials are based on what he did with defensive backs, and Pruitt picked him for that. With the two of them there, UT should not need Thompson alone to be elite in the secondary.

There are plenty of reasons for Pruitt to be on notice in 2021, but Thompson’s departure is one of them. If Pruitt can’t figure out a way to offset that, then everything about his resume that led to him becoming Tennessee football’s head coach goes out the window.