I wish everyone would stop with the "Covid Year" ********! EVERY team in the USA has had to deal with covid and is doing MUCH better than us. Give me a break.
You want instant grits in 5 minutes, or the real thing in 30?
Where coaching was the issue, a coaching change can produce almost immediate results. Where it was a combination of an overall lack of talent, a losing culture, as well as coaching, well...these things take time.
Not defending Pruitt. I've gone from "all in" to "Maybe the HC hat is a bit too big for his head". He's made his mistakes, to be certain. But it was clear, at least to me, back in May that college football in 2020 was going to be little more than a chance for FBS teams to dial-in for the 2021 season against live competition (i.e. - glorified scrimmages). The teams that were already in championship form have / will stay there (Bama, Clemson); the teams that were on the cusp will stay there (UGA, UF); and there will be quite a number of teams that trend sharply upward or downward depending on a number of factors, including luck (Oklahoma, PSU, ND, Liberty). If ever a national champion deserves an asterisk next to the team name, 2020 will be right up there with 1984(?), and BYU. Not worth the ink it took to print it.
LSU is a good example of what happens when your "reload" year gets scrambled by a combination of 19 departures and no chance to fill those gaps.
UT still had too many glaring bald spots (sorry, just had to go there) to patch it all up in this abbreviated season. There are a number of areas that you can point to, including a coaching staff that still doesn't seem to be on the same page. But 2020 is a wash regardless, so we're just gonna have to ride this one out and see what this team looks like next year. Pruitt isn't going anywhere this year unless he decides to leave on his own. And that's not likely. His pride won't let him walk away when the chips are down. I look for him to double-down on his recruiting, bow up, and start thinking about how to hit the field like a mad rhino against Bowling Green on September 4th. He's a defensive guru. He needs to learn how to make the jump to Head Coach / CEO. Hire an OC you trust, and then get out of his way. Two small changes that, IMO will produce big results, sooner rather then later.
Go Vols.
