- Joined
- Jul 7, 2008
- Messages
- 85,562
- Likes
- 34,217
We went from being the worst program in the SEC East to the third best program in the SEC East.
Other than maybe Kentucky, Tennessee is clearly in better shape than everyone else besides Georgia and Florida.
Now, in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t really impressive. It’s basically the minimum of what Tennessee should. But for someone who was ready for Pruitt to be fired just two months ago, I think this point is very important of how far we’ve come in 24 months.
In 2017, we got blown out by both Missouri and Vanderbilt. They blew us out last year too. We lost to South Carolina and Kentucky. We dominated two of those teams this year (Vandy and USCe) and controlled the game against Missouri. Once JG came in against UK Tennessee was clearly the better team.
Are we a top program? No. Our the first two losses of the year still bad losses? Sure. But I think I’m more impressed the staff rallied to a solid season at 7-5 considering that just six weeks ago we were staring at the barrel of the worst season in program history. I think it’s better for the overall long term direction of the program that the 7-5 season is 5-3 in the SEC than 3-5.
So even if Pruitt doesn’t win titles, at the very least we are much improved from where we were two years ago to the day and have leapfrogged four other programs. Hell, maybe by next year we will have leapfrogged another one (Florida game is at Neyland next year ). And Pruitt took over a team that went 4-8 (0-8) and in two years went 7-5 (5-3). That’s solid improvement. That’s being in the right direction. It’s nice to say the program is trending upwards.
Other than maybe Kentucky, Tennessee is clearly in better shape than everyone else besides Georgia and Florida.
Now, in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t really impressive. It’s basically the minimum of what Tennessee should. But for someone who was ready for Pruitt to be fired just two months ago, I think this point is very important of how far we’ve come in 24 months.
In 2017, we got blown out by both Missouri and Vanderbilt. They blew us out last year too. We lost to South Carolina and Kentucky. We dominated two of those teams this year (Vandy and USCe) and controlled the game against Missouri. Once JG came in against UK Tennessee was clearly the better team.
Are we a top program? No. Our the first two losses of the year still bad losses? Sure. But I think I’m more impressed the staff rallied to a solid season at 7-5 considering that just six weeks ago we were staring at the barrel of the worst season in program history. I think it’s better for the overall long term direction of the program that the 7-5 season is 5-3 in the SEC than 3-5.
So even if Pruitt doesn’t win titles, at the very least we are much improved from where we were two years ago to the day and have leapfrogged four other programs. Hell, maybe by next year we will have leapfrogged another one (Florida game is at Neyland next year ). And Pruitt took over a team that went 4-8 (0-8) and in two years went 7-5 (5-3). That’s solid improvement. That’s being in the right direction. It’s nice to say the program is trending upwards.