I’ve bled orange since birth, raised by a Tennessee Alum, and grew up during the era of Tennessee as a dominant football power. Typical of the generational divide in Vol Nation, Alabama was the team my dad despised most, while I grew up learning to hate gators.
However, since moving to Georgia eight years ago, this game has taken on new meaning. After our hail mary victory in 2016, I finally got to wear orange obnoxiously and talk a little trash for the first time in many years. Needless to say, my (quiet) animus for the Dawgs has grown over these years, to the point where my wife openly questioned my Volunteer loyalty in January because of how joyously I celebrated the hated Tide winning another national championship. But I do not apologize. Seeing them rip Jawja’s hearts out was worth it.
So it was with much anticipation, and some dread, especially after the Vols decided to voodoo doll themselves last week, that I watched a game in which we roundly expected to get dominated in every way. And while the final score was not close, it is oddly satisfying that I can honestly make my first preliminary appraisal of the Pruitt era after this game. While there are plenty of discussions to be had about specific players, coaches, decisions, etc., that’s not my focus. Given the state of our program, the big picture is what I’m worried about.
There are three fundamental things that a college football coach does:
It goes without saying that Jeremy Pruitt has walked into Tennessee having been around winning football and coached winning football. He has obviously had personal coaching success at the highest level in each of these three areas as a coordinator. I have to think that is a large part of why he was hired by the guy who just so happens to be the last Tennessee coach to weave all of those qualities into championship football.
As this season began, most of us knew that Tennessee was in for a tough year, as the previous regime, as it turns out, wasn’t really all that good at Xs and Os, or leadership. However, the optimists among us recognized that the cupboard wasn’t completely bare, and that good coaches can have some success even with another coach’s players.
Jeremy Pruitt inherited a Tennessee roster which obviously trails Georgia, Alabama, and others in the SEC in raw talent. However, on paper, there is sufficient talent on the roster to compete with all but the elite teams, all else being equal. However, as a first year head coach, all else is not equal.
Pruitt is doing job number (1) as a head coach for the first time. While there is no reason to really doubt that he intimately knows the game of football, and has been a part of the dominant winning formula for years, and that he hired an impressive staff, they are implementing proven X's and O's to a roster full of players more used to seeing Y's and P's. He is also making in game decisions as head coach for the first time. This is obviously a work in progress on both accounts.
Job number (2), the Jimmys and the Joes part, is always a long haul. Coaches are always graded on a curve of years, because while good coaches can and have been competitive early in the SEC, they are usually always given the chance to implement their system with their players. In our current situation, especially in his first year, all we can really hope for is for Pruitt to be competitive with the rest of the SEC until he can recruit us to be on par with Georgia and Alabama, if he can.
Hence the massive disappointment last week, when Tennessee played a beatable Florida team, but spent the entire game getting Maxims 2 and 3 hopelessly wrong. When the breaks went against us, we gave them more breaks, and they scored. Over, and over, and over again. Could we have beaten the Gators had we played anywhere near a clean game? Had we made progress on any of the other Maxims? Even those who were inclined to say yes beforehand, myself included, were rendered mute by the new and imaginative ways we found to get in our own way.
Which brings us to Georgia, and job number (3), and Maxim number 7. This team, despite the disaster that was last week, despite another fluky early break going against them, played hard, and they did not quit. The defense never stopped. They weren’t getting any breaks. They forced four fumbles that bounced right back to Georgia, and they missed an interception that maybe should have been made. But they kept playing. The offense, which was challenged to do much of anything all day, kept playing. It took a few Georgia miscues, and timely penalties, but they finally got some points on the board. Most importantly, they didn’t gift Georgia much. The 30+ point underdog was within two scores on the road at Georgia in the fourth quarter. Had one or more of those bounces gone Tennessee’s way earlier on, Georgia might have even broken a sweat.
Was Tennessee going to win that game? Not really. Given the talent disparity, like we saw, it would have taken some breaks just for the Vols to even be in a close game in the fourth quarter. And even if we had gotten those breaks, what did happen probably would have happened: Georgia’s talent and depth gave them the extra gear to put us away late, just when it was getting a tiny bit interesting.
Regardless of the outcome, however, and regardless of the degree to which coaching category (1) is a work in progress, and coaching category number (2) is still a year or two away at best, number (3) seems to have shown real progress. These Vols carried the fight to Georgia and kept it there for 60 minutes. Did they make mistakes? Sure. Did they get beat by an athletically superior team? Absolutely. But did they wilt? Did they quit? Did they let Georgia convince them that they didn’t even belong on the field? Absolutely not.
Which brings us to Pruitt’s post game remarks. He was emotional, because he saw tangible results today. He saw, and those of us who were watching with a slightly longer view saw, that while there were again mixed results on category (1) stuff, what we really saw was category (3). This is a team that is buying what their coach is selling. They played hard today and kept playing, for 60 minutes. Even though they were on the road against the #2 team in the country, down 24-0 in the second half, they weren’t intimidated, and like Pruitt said after the game, they fought back and made Georgia know they were in a football game.
While these Vols have a long way to go just to be a consistent football team, they showed that if they stay out of their own way, they can be competitive. Will it matter in either of the next two games? Probably not. Like against Georgia, it would probably take a string of breaks like we gave the Gators to make either of the next two games even interesting. But after that? Can the team that showed up against Georgia, especially if they can start getting a few breaks going their way, compete with and beat anyone left on schedule? That's the potential that Jeremy Pruitt saw yesterday. Jeremy Pruitt said of his team that “they were not gonna quit…it kinda gets me excited.” It got me just a little bit exited too. It's a long season, and this team has a lot of room for growth and improvement left. Perhaps this season can still be a positive step forward, which is all anyone could reasonably have hoped for.
Go Big Orange.
However, since moving to Georgia eight years ago, this game has taken on new meaning. After our hail mary victory in 2016, I finally got to wear orange obnoxiously and talk a little trash for the first time in many years. Needless to say, my (quiet) animus for the Dawgs has grown over these years, to the point where my wife openly questioned my Volunteer loyalty in January because of how joyously I celebrated the hated Tide winning another national championship. But I do not apologize. Seeing them rip Jawja’s hearts out was worth it.
So it was with much anticipation, and some dread, especially after the Vols decided to voodoo doll themselves last week, that I watched a game in which we roundly expected to get dominated in every way. And while the final score was not close, it is oddly satisfying that I can honestly make my first preliminary appraisal of the Pruitt era after this game. While there are plenty of discussions to be had about specific players, coaches, decisions, etc., that’s not my focus. Given the state of our program, the big picture is what I’m worried about.
There are three fundamental things that a college football coach does:
- He plans and schemes the game of football, trains players, and executes on gameday.
- He recruits players
- He is a leader of men
It goes without saying that Jeremy Pruitt has walked into Tennessee having been around winning football and coached winning football. He has obviously had personal coaching success at the highest level in each of these three areas as a coordinator. I have to think that is a large part of why he was hired by the guy who just so happens to be the last Tennessee coach to weave all of those qualities into championship football.
As this season began, most of us knew that Tennessee was in for a tough year, as the previous regime, as it turns out, wasn’t really all that good at Xs and Os, or leadership. However, the optimists among us recognized that the cupboard wasn’t completely bare, and that good coaches can have some success even with another coach’s players.
Jeremy Pruitt inherited a Tennessee roster which obviously trails Georgia, Alabama, and others in the SEC in raw talent. However, on paper, there is sufficient talent on the roster to compete with all but the elite teams, all else being equal. However, as a first year head coach, all else is not equal.
Pruitt is doing job number (1) as a head coach for the first time. While there is no reason to really doubt that he intimately knows the game of football, and has been a part of the dominant winning formula for years, and that he hired an impressive staff, they are implementing proven X's and O's to a roster full of players more used to seeing Y's and P's. He is also making in game decisions as head coach for the first time. This is obviously a work in progress on both accounts.
Job number (2), the Jimmys and the Joes part, is always a long haul. Coaches are always graded on a curve of years, because while good coaches can and have been competitive early in the SEC, they are usually always given the chance to implement their system with their players. In our current situation, especially in his first year, all we can really hope for is for Pruitt to be competitive with the rest of the SEC until he can recruit us to be on par with Georgia and Alabama, if he can.
Hence the massive disappointment last week, when Tennessee played a beatable Florida team, but spent the entire game getting Maxims 2 and 3 hopelessly wrong. When the breaks went against us, we gave them more breaks, and they scored. Over, and over, and over again. Could we have beaten the Gators had we played anywhere near a clean game? Had we made progress on any of the other Maxims? Even those who were inclined to say yes beforehand, myself included, were rendered mute by the new and imaginative ways we found to get in our own way.
Which brings us to Georgia, and job number (3), and Maxim number 7. This team, despite the disaster that was last week, despite another fluky early break going against them, played hard, and they did not quit. The defense never stopped. They weren’t getting any breaks. They forced four fumbles that bounced right back to Georgia, and they missed an interception that maybe should have been made. But they kept playing. The offense, which was challenged to do much of anything all day, kept playing. It took a few Georgia miscues, and timely penalties, but they finally got some points on the board. Most importantly, they didn’t gift Georgia much. The 30+ point underdog was within two scores on the road at Georgia in the fourth quarter. Had one or more of those bounces gone Tennessee’s way earlier on, Georgia might have even broken a sweat.
Was Tennessee going to win that game? Not really. Given the talent disparity, like we saw, it would have taken some breaks just for the Vols to even be in a close game in the fourth quarter. And even if we had gotten those breaks, what did happen probably would have happened: Georgia’s talent and depth gave them the extra gear to put us away late, just when it was getting a tiny bit interesting.
Regardless of the outcome, however, and regardless of the degree to which coaching category (1) is a work in progress, and coaching category number (2) is still a year or two away at best, number (3) seems to have shown real progress. These Vols carried the fight to Georgia and kept it there for 60 minutes. Did they make mistakes? Sure. Did they get beat by an athletically superior team? Absolutely. But did they wilt? Did they quit? Did they let Georgia convince them that they didn’t even belong on the field? Absolutely not.
Which brings us to Pruitt’s post game remarks. He was emotional, because he saw tangible results today. He saw, and those of us who were watching with a slightly longer view saw, that while there were again mixed results on category (1) stuff, what we really saw was category (3). This is a team that is buying what their coach is selling. They played hard today and kept playing, for 60 minutes. Even though they were on the road against the #2 team in the country, down 24-0 in the second half, they weren’t intimidated, and like Pruitt said after the game, they fought back and made Georgia know they were in a football game.
While these Vols have a long way to go just to be a consistent football team, they showed that if they stay out of their own way, they can be competitive. Will it matter in either of the next two games? Probably not. Like against Georgia, it would probably take a string of breaks like we gave the Gators to make either of the next two games even interesting. But after that? Can the team that showed up against Georgia, especially if they can start getting a few breaks going their way, compete with and beat anyone left on schedule? That's the potential that Jeremy Pruitt saw yesterday. Jeremy Pruitt said of his team that “they were not gonna quit…it kinda gets me excited.” It got me just a little bit exited too. It's a long season, and this team has a lot of room for growth and improvement left. Perhaps this season can still be a positive step forward, which is all anyone could reasonably have hoped for.
Go Big Orange.
