IMHO this fanbase needs to stop being so gullible.
It's clear that the media doesn't know anything right now. A few of them admit this, and I'm cool with those that do. But most of them spend their time dropping rumors and gossip, knowing that the fanbase is in full coaching search feeding frenzy and will gobble everything up. It's easy money for them... especially when they can scapegoat the administration whenever they miss. So when they call Chip Lindsey or Hugh Freeze to Knoxville and it turns out that the former was never a serious option and the latter isn't at the top of our list, the media backpedals into "this administration sux lololol" while losing no credibility for their mistakes.
Some people are already calling this a 'debacle', 'Tennessee being Tennessee', whatever. Nah. This is a coaching search. It's not unusual for this process to take a lot of time, especially when many candidates are still coaching and Pruitt himself is out recruiting. If there's a debacle, it's that much of the UT media never seems to lose any trust from its consumers despite flinging a stream of constant BS.