To be honest I’m not entirely sure what the issue is. Pruitt is very clearly a good recruiter and good football coach.
It seems like he’s had an issue early in each cycle determining which recruits are “takes” and closing on elite prospects late in each cycle. Of course there are exceptions and a lot of the issue can likely be attributed to a lack of on-field success both during his tenure and Tennessee as a whole over the last decade.
And to be honest, I’m not complaining about recruiting - it could be easily argued we are recruiting better than our record warrants. Recruiting has been very good. I just assumed when we hired him we would get a handful of elite players every year - especially on the defensive side of the ball. We’ve got a few of those guys - I’m just not sure there’s been enough to make a difference.
the 19 class has a very good core of elite players.
but here's the thing about this particular class.
it has been widely documented with most all of the prospects, the higher rated ones, that they were going to be paying attent to what kind of progress TN showed on the field. and that that progress would be a factor in the decision.
it's also been widely reported on how close this particular crop of in state kids were, and that it was, on some level, a desire to play together if possible.
it's also been widely accepted and loosely reported that kids like Baron and Hardy have been strong TN leans for MONTHS.
and based on everything we've seen so far this year, despite the slow start to the season, we've seen a bunch of these in state kids get in the boat, including Mays and Lawrence, we've seen the defensive development this season...especially on the DL. we've seen the in state kids take multiple visits to TN this fall.
imo, everything we were supposed to do to land the bulk of this in state crop....we've done it. and not landing Hardy, and possibly not landing Baron would scream all kinds of shadiness on someone's part.
there's zero doubt in my mind that this staff hasn't done everything they're supposed to. it's not like these kids haven't been made priorities and been "shown the love" etc....
just for some...........................that's all BS. and every year we have some of these, where in state or not, it just doesn't matter. relationships don't matter. and this year, it appears Hardy is one of those. it didn't matter what we did, he was going to hte highest bidder. period, so now we've jsut wasted a year and a half ( or more ) on someone that couldn't care less about coming here.
