Funny how the wind can change direction.

[DonDiego]

At 2 and 0 everyone was excited, loving Pruitt and thought Chaney was an awesome hire, 5 games later no one wants either one and if I was guessing thinks they can coach better than both. Just my observation. Funny don't ya think?

I see a bunch of posts on here, including Jennifer Lawrence showing up in more than one post (I didn't know she was a Vol), that turns your premise right back to the talking points of every other recent thread, and that is Pruitt sucks, hire Freeze. I salute you for trying to open up another avenue of discussion, but sorry, all roads are closed. The long knives have come out.

 

[orange parmejohn]

I wasn’t too enamored with the team after the first 2 games either.

 

[VolArmy74]

I seem to recall it was probably 50/50 after game one. People were upset that we barely beat a very bad South Carolina team because we had a defensive touchdown and the JG led offense was back to it's classic ceiling of scoring 24 points or less in a game, like it does 95 percent of the time.

The Missouri game briefly calmed a few people, because for whatever reason he plays like a legit SEC QB vs Missouri. Ever since then the wheels have been off and we've all been down this road about 5 or 6 times in the last 12 years.

 

[hog88]

At 2 and 0 everyone was excited, loving Pruitt and thought Chaney was an awesome hire, 5 games later no one wants either one and if I was guessing thinks they can coach better than both. Just my observation. Funny don't ya think?

We barely defeated a bad SCjr team and played ok against Mitzzu so I don’t know why anyone should have been ’excited”.

 

[GetYouSomeofThat]

At 2 and 0 everyone was excited, loving Pruitt and thought Chaney was an awesome hire, 5 games later no one wants either one and if I was guessing thinks they can coach better than both. Just my observation. Funny don't ya think?

Not everyone


Some of us could remember all the eay back to Georgia State...

 

[jwilliams]

Pruitt's only real hope at this point is that he hits on either Harrison Bailey or Kaiden Salter (or a transfer). A really good QB would elevate this current team back to where we expected them to be this year... in that 2nd tier, with the ability to play the top-tier teams a close game. If he could pull that off, then all the cry-babies would be right back to loving the vols.

To the OP's main point, it's not that surprising that folks have turned on him. I think most were ready to give him a pass after the Kentucky game, even... but then he lost to Arkansas and a bad Auburn team... that just iced it for many. There's no excuse for losing those games.

 

[tnutater]

Improvement....we have not seen any.
That is what has the fanbase fired up.
It is not an unreasonable expectation.
And us Tennessee fans are known for unreasonable expectations.

 

[JonGrudensAgent]

Ah, jeez. Step back from the ledge, fella.

After this year I’m gonna by-God laugh at the ridiculous when I see it. Life’s too short to do otherwise.

I mean, honestly; is there any one of us that hasn’t at least snickered at a pick-6 this year? It’s just a straight-up absurd level of QB suck.

You either laugh at the existential absurdity of your team when they’re this down in the dumps, or assault someone. Last I checked, only Bammers and Barners are up for the latter, and they can both kiss every bit of my arse.

Post of the year material right here IMO.

This program has been a caricature of an SEC power for going on 15 years .

No sense getting worked up so much about it when everything in the real world is so miserable right now. Plenty of other things to get p***ed off over.

 

[tnutater]

Ah, jeez. Step back from the ledge, fella.

After this year I’m gonna by-God laugh at the ridiculous when I see it. Life’s too short to do otherwise.

I mean, honestly; is there any one of us that hasn’t at least snickered at a pick-6 this year? It’s just a straight-up absurd level of QB suck.

You either laugh at the existential absurdity of your team when they’re this down in the dumps, or assault someone. Last I checked, only Bammers and Barners are up for the latter, and they can both kiss every bit of my arse.

Like for the use of the word existential on this forum.
I wish I could award another for the graphic description of the target area that Bama can smooch.
I love all that hate Bama.

 

[Sea Ray]

For a minute (2 games) we looked like we might know how to play football. We weren't fantastic, but we looked like we were getting there. Then the wheels came off after halftime against uga and exposed us. Smells like regression to me.

It's really all about the pick 6's. They've been demoralizing. Pruitt seems to think that his other options sucked too. He's had enough practice time to play Harrison Bailey. No more excuses. Let's go to war with Bailey

 

[Steve_Smith89]

At 2 and 0 everyone was excited, loving Pruitt and thought Chaney was an awesome hire, 5 games later no one wants either one and if I was guessing thinks they can coach better than both. Just my observation. Funny don't ya think?

I swear people that post this kind of stuff don’t even watch the games.

Bro how can you honestly sit there and watch 60 minutes of us getting our ass busted and come defend the garbage product that we field every season?

 

[lightnin']

Indiana.

Tennessee beat them in the Gator Bowl; yeah-I saw it then simply as a "status quo" win over a lucky, one-off
"basketball school".

Not how it turned out. I assumed after we'd dispatched the Hoosiers, we'd made a statement that we
were on the way back and, schools like Indiana could look forward to basketball season and leave
football to the UT's of the world.

Ironically, our most revealing 2020 loss was to another "basketball school"... at Neyland.

We can talk about the players, coaches, AD's, schemes and all the rest of it; I'll leave that to others. But
the failures we've witnessed for so long are failures of leadership and I offer no solution.

 

[FLVOL_79]

At 2 and 0 everyone was excited, loving Pruitt and thought Chaney was an awesome hire, 5 games later no one wants either one and if I was guessing thinks they can coach better than both. Just my observation. Funny don't ya think?

People got excited that UT had a winning streak where they literally for the most part barely won and were just plain lucky. The pre-season ranking was bogus, and the two initial wins were a fluke. Most sane people understood this.

The losses to GSU and BYU should have been the final nail in the coffin for most people in regards to Pruitt's head coaching ability.

 

[tnutater]

Not everyone


Some of us could remember all the eay back to Georgia State...

Beyond any doubt, that was the most unprepared team that I have ever seen in Orange.

 

[tnutater]

People got excited that UT had a winning streak where they literally for the most part barely won and were just plain lucky. The pre-season ranking was bogus, and the two initial wins were a fluke. Most sane people understood this.

The losses to GSU and BYU should have been the final nail in the coffin for most people in regards to Pruitt's head coaching ability.

Tennessee fanatics are generally not considered sane people when it comes to their Vols.

 

[VolFreakJosh]

It took a dumb mistake by one of SC’s players to beat them.

Missouri didn’t have a QB worth a damn until they put in Bazelak.

The 8 game winning streak were against bad teams.

0-9 against against Bama, Georgia, and UF. (We’re not beating Florida this year)

Kept JG as the starter.

Pruitt’s criticism is well deserved.

 

[Credo]

We’ve been downwind from the sewer plant for 20 years now

 

[Chippo]

Yeah, I don't think it is THAT we lost the games, as much as HOW we lost the games. Granted, no one is happy being 2-5. And of course, we should have won against Arkansas and Kentucky for sure.

But the unhappiness comes from the rigidity of Pruitt to make changes when it appears obvious to everyone that they need to be made. And honestly? I think that if Pruitt took out Guarantano after the first half of Kentucky, and played Bailey the rest of the way, this year would be a lot different. Maybe not so much in wins and losses, but I think our team looks a lot different, and the ways the games played out would look a lot different.

Nobody is happy getting blown out. But more so, nobody is happy seeing the same thing play out over and over and over in a quarterback who has stared down receivers for 5 years, and who has under/overthrown receivers for 5 years, and who has thrown probably more pick 6's than any SEC quarterback in the past 50 years. It's so predictable now that we just grow to expect it. And that's the sad part. We grow to expect that our coaches are going to put a player in who continually makes glaring mistakes, and there's a part of us that wonders, "Do we really truly not have any better options?"

And the things is, if we don't? Okay, well, that sucks. But we have seen Bailey and even Maurer and Shrout so little this year, that it's impossible to truly know what we have right now.

I think the thing that just has me so resigned right now, is that this team, for whatever reason, has lost its swagger. It has no confidence. It has no aggression. It lays down and dies. And that is RADICALLY different than the team that I saw last year. And that is really sad.

I've wondered all year how much losing Jennings, Calloway, Bituli and Darrell Taylor really hurt.

Good post. How true.

 

[tnutater]

Indiana.

Tennessee beat them in the Gator Bowl; yeah-I saw it then simply as a "status quo" win over a lucky, one-off
"basketball school".

Not how it turned out. I assumed after we'd dispatched the Hoosiers, we'd made a statement that we
were on the way back and, schools like Indiana could look forward to basketball season and leave
football to the UT's of the world.

Ironically, our most revealing 2020 loss was to another "basketball school"... at Neyland.

We can talk about the players, coaches, AD's, schemes and all the rest of it; I'll leave that to others. But
the failures we've witnessed for so long are failures of leadership and I offer no solution.

It all starts at the top and runs downhill.

 

[volmandu]

At 2 and 0 everyone was excited, loving Pruitt and thought Chaney was an awesome hire, 5 games later no one wants either one and if I was guessing thinks they can coach better than both. Just my observation. Funny don't ya think?

Not funny at all. It is result driven business. At 13-0, Auburn loved Gene Chizik while at 2-10 he was fired. It is the norm. Have you been living under the rock ??

 

[chattavol420]

Agree. But there’s more to the story. For one...Pruitt has never been a head coach before. So fans are very much in the fence as he has not proven himself. Then we started out 0-2 last year with maybe the worst loss in program history. He lured some of us back with a nice win streak but looking back...those were all teams we’re supposed to beat and many of the games were coin flips (we barely won). Anyway, it’s been so bad this year most fans now realize the obvious. That’s he’s in way over his head and isn’t the guy to lead us back

 

[hog88]

Pruitt's only real hope at this point is that he hits on either Harrison Bailey or Kaiden Salter (or a transfer). A really good QB would elevate this current team back to where we expected them to be this year... in that 2nd tier, with the ability to play the top-tier teams a close game. If he could pull that off, then all the cry-babies would be right back to loving the vols.

To the OP's main point, it's not that surprising that folks have turned on him. I think most were ready to give him a pass after the Kentucky game, even... but then he lost to Arkansas and a bad Auburn team... that just iced it for many. There's no excuse for losing those games.

Unless that QB can play defense not much will change. Everyone keeps ignoring the fact that our defense hasn’t been able to stop anyone in the second half.

 

[Raebo]

I think what bothered me most was our game plan the first quarter of the Alabama game. Short running plays that led to 3rd and long which led to short passes that turned into 4th down. It appeared we were not even trying to win, we already gave up and were trying to run the clock down to keep Bama from beating us by 50.
Also I don't know why the backup QBs didn't get more playing time. Do I take Pruitt as word that JG is our best option? I don't place much faith in coach speak. Did covid and injuries really slow down the other QBs?
How can we believe the staff and AD when everything seems so secretive? Heck, we never knew who the backup quarterback was or even who is starting tomorrow. The source of information seems to be coded tweets from players.

 

[OrangeTsar]

We’ve been downwind from the sewer plant for 20 years now

Do you mean the Lane Kiffin Lift Station?

 

[R481967]

At 2 and 0 everyone was excited, loving Pruitt and thought Chaney was an awesome hire, 5 games later no one wants either one and if I was guessing thinks they can coach better than both. Just my observation. Funny don't ya think?

Not so funny... and the irony is obvious, but this season, again, shows that UT fans love winning and hate losing. Is it really that simple? Yes.