vegasvolfan
Do what you have to until you can do what you want
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- Sep 28, 2010
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When things do not work out people freak out. This entire site is full of examples. Our program history is full of examples. I get that we all want an answer, but it is simple. We suck and we are paying three coaches right now. We do not want to be paying three that are not our head coaches. We are stuck with Pruitt for the next couple of years.
That said, I am growing a little tired of Pruitt’s responses to questions. I do not care about his player experiences, He was not that good of a player. I also find his pointing to other players’ mistakes when JG takes heat to be repetitive and reflective of a coach that lacks the intelligence necessary to compete as a power 5 HC. Yes, every player costs their team with a mistake, but you cannot compare most positions (if any at all) with the QB position. The QB typically touches the ball on every play.
When it comes to JG’s performance and Pruitt’s decision to name him the starter, Pruitt’s previous case was that he didn’t make mistakes. That was a good reason, but lately, we have been watching one of the worst QB performances in my lifetime (45) occur before our eyes during a year when our QB was supposed to be at his best. Yet Pruitt continues to start him while we have Harrison Bailey on our roster.
The only argument for this baffling decision is that Bailey missed all of spring camp and a lot of summer camp. That is a lot of time that Bailey did not have to learn an offense. That time was also typical for Freshman QBs who have performed well at other schools in the past. Still, we have a room full of QBs that deserve a shot. A REAL shot. If we were close in these games, it would be one thing, but we are not.
Pruitt’s excuse is that the other players are not ready. That, then, points to coaching. I am not sure how much influence Pruitt has over the development of our QBs, but as the HC, he should understand there are some glaring issues when it comes to the development of our QBs. He should understand that his team is running out of gas because they lack the stamina they had with Fitz. He should understand that it is indeed his job to address fans and the media. He is the HEAD COACH. Not a position coach. No one position or side of the ball should be his focus. If he wants that to be the case, he needs to resign and go back to being a position coach or a coordinator. He won’t though, so we are stuck paying a man that seems to understand less about being a head coach than I ever could have imagined.
That said, I am beginning to question his coaching abilities altogether and can’t help but wonder if a lot of his coaching successes as a coordinator have more to do with the teams he coached for. A lot of coaches succeed because of their situations. Football is also very political. So, Pruitt has also benefitted from relationship building in the past. Still, none of that has anything to do with one’s ability to take players and make them better. I will side with the argument that when he can focus on a few, he is actually the coach many of his former players say he is, but that seems (so far) to be at best what he is.
What we needed, however, is a coach that can rebuild a program. He has never held a position where he has even been a part of a rebuild—let alone holding a position where he is leading the entire rebuild in the SEC. Maybe he will figure it out on our dime, but so far... he hasn’t. We have gotten worse. Not better.
Regardless of how well he does, we should not fire him until we know who his replacement is going to be. We will need a coach that has rebuilt a program before—someone who has been able to do more with less against power 5 teams. If we fire him without knowing who our next coach is only to replace him with a coach who has shown signs of progress in different situations, we will repeat the cycle we started when we fired Fulmer all over again. Yep, this all started when we fired a HOF coach with zero idea of who we were going to replace him with.
I respect that our boosters want to get our program into better financial shape by ending the cycle of firing coaches while we still owe money only to hire coaches that are not what we want only to fire them and owe them money too. I also would respect someone, or a group of someones with a lot of money coming in and saying, look, we are a part of the reason we are at where we are at, so we are just going to go ahead and go after Hugh Freeze. No fan out there should expect that Boosters should spend their millions like that. To hold those expectations is selfish and ungrateful IMO. We are blessed to have the boosters we have.
So, there it is. We should be and more likely will be stuck with Pruitt unless our boosters do something we should not expect them to do. We in fact should hold onto him, not only until Dooley and Butch and whoever else are paid off, but also until we find the right person to lead our program back to glory.
I will leave it with this, however. Timing and fit are everything and the right coaches are few and far in between. You can, however, buy the right timing if you have the money. Again, noone should expect this of anyone, but it may be worth it for someone to think about.
On that note, Freeze is the sexiest hire, but I see him going to Michigan or somewhere else—mainly because of how much he will cost Tennessee on top of our buyouts and the fact the more traditional influences at Tennessee will lack the excitement of bringing a guy with stains on his resume to Knoxville. However, if Fitzgerald (NW) and Tom Allen continue to perform this year, they will end up looking to be the type of coach that we need. They would have a lot more to work with than they did at their other stops.
It seems as though it is likely, however, that we will watch a handful of coaches go buy and stick with Pruitt. I am preparing for some boring years of football. I usually say, I hope Pruitt does it, but as he continues to make dismissive comments, I continue to care less about him as our coach. I am sure he is a good man, but why should we care about a guy who makes excuses and devalues the fans when he knows he is not getting the job done?
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