OUCH Pruitt a poor man's Butch??

#1
whodeycin85

whodeycin85

3rd grade debating champ!
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#1
Opinion: Jeremy Pruitt Is Coaching Like A Poor Man’s Butch Jones

It is now been over 24 hours since Tennessee’s humiliating 34-7 loss to Kentucky in Neyland Stadium and this loss stings even more.
That was Kentucky’s first win over the Vols in Neyland Stadium since 1984. 36 Years. You thought that stat was bad? Well, buckle up.
The last time a Kentucky football team defeated the Vols by 27? 1935. No, I am not joking. 1935. Literally the last time Kentucky won by that margin was before World War II.

I have seen a lot of terrible moments in my 22 years of life as a Tennessee fan. The embarrassing loss to Wyoming in 2008, LSU and UNC in 2010, Oklahoma in 2015, Florida in 2017 and Georgia State last year, just to name a few.
This tops the list and it ain’t even close. This loss feels much worse than the Georgia State game. I have tried to give this guy opportunity after opportunity. Folks, this guy is not the answer and it is beyond obvious. We are in year three of the Jerry Pruitt era and we are getting blown out by freaking Kentucky at home.
We are not even competitive against Kentucky. We are paying a football coach over $4 million a year and this is the end result. We have a coach who refuses to give any other QB an opportunity. I have never seen a coach give a quarterback as many opportunities as Pruitt has given to Jarrett Guarantano.
Guarantano throws two straight pick-sixes, you only give J.T. Shrout three plays as an opportunity, and you bring back Guarantano onto the field? What logic does that make?

It is year three now and we still do not have a QB. Pruitt has failed to develop Guarantano into being a competent QB. Sure, you can make the excuses that he has had a couple different OC’s and QB coaches. But this all comes down to the head coach. This is just inexcusable.
No one expected him to be a world-beater, but Guarantano is still making freshman mistakes. Having the same game plan and expecting different results week in and week out is the definition of insanity. Pruitt, yesterday, in the post-game press conference blamed his masks as part of the loss.
No this is not a joke, he literally said his mask caused communication issues. These excuses are just pathetic. These type of excuses are something Butch Jones would say.

You know what, Pruitt is a poor man’s Butch Jones. In fact, I would argue that he is worse than Jones.
29 games into his tenure at Tennessee, Jones was 14-15. Pruitt is 15-14. Yes, Pruitt’s record is better than Jones’ so far. But here is the difference between the two’s tenures.
Butch’s teams got better and were competitive against Florida and Oklahoma by year three. We are losing to Kentucky by 27 at home. This team and program is going backwards.
This team literally quit in the 3rd quarter when Kentucky scored their third touchdown. At least when it came to Butch’s teams, they would wait until November before they quit. At least Jones’ teams were fairly competitive against Florida and Georgia. At least Jones’ teams beat Kentucky.
We haven’t even made it halfway to the season and this team has appeared to quit. Much like this team, this fanbase is starting to quit on this football program. Alabama rolls into town this weekend and that will be a loss before we have a week off.
Pruitt and this team need to get it together and salvage this season in the second half of the season. But, if we continue to see what we saw Saturday, Tennessee isn’t winning another game this year.
 
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#2
#2
It doesn’t feel worse than the GA State loss. UK is a decent team with a pretty good coach. Anyone remember Jeff Francis? Steve Alatorre? Jeff Oshevski? (Probably spelled this last 2 wrong) Things have been much worse around here in the QB department...give it some time.
 
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#6
#6
By game 4 in Y3 under Butch, we were 2-2 after choking away games to UF and Oklahoma. The bright side was the team was very competitive but it had its hands tied by a coaching staff that couldn't close games

By game 4 this year, we were run off the field in the 2nd half against UGA and curbstomped at home to a 1-2 UK team. This coaching staff has shown it can win close games but their hands are tied by lack of halftime adjustments and really poor QB/OL coaching/play.

Not sure we are seeing progress....
 
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#7
#7
You can’t throw out “Butch was competitive with Florida and Georgia” as a way of slamming Pruitt. Butch had the benefit of coaching against Florida during the McElwain and Muschamp era’s, and coaching against Georgia during the downfall of the Richt era and the beginning of the Kirby era.

In 2014 Florida scored TEN points on us... TEN... and still won.

There are plenty of arguments against Pruitt, but this one is dumb. Tennessee’s 3 biggest rivals are all in the Top 10 consistently right now, 2 are in the Top 5 consistently. Even Clemson would have a much worse record if you threw those 3 against them every year right now.
 
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#8
#8
People need to calm down. Without Josh Dobbs, Butch Jones would have been gone by year 3. Pruitt has laid a good foundation in recruiting, but he may not have the right coaching staff. A lot of what happened was on Chaney. He's on the hot seat for sure right now. You've got a 5 star O line underperforming and 0 out of 4 QB's able to manage a game.
 
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#11
#11
knox-townVOL said:
You can’t throw out “Butch was competitive with Florida and Georgia” as a way of slamming Pruitt. Butch had the benefit of coaching against Florida during the McElwain and Muschamp era’s, and coaching against Georgia during the downfall of the Richt era and the beginning of the Kirby era.

In 2014 Florida scored TEN points on us... TEN... and still won.

There are plenty of arguments against Pruitt, but this one is dumb. Tennessee’s 3 biggest rivals are all in the Top 10 consistently right now, 2 are in the Top 5 consistently. Even Clemson would have a much worse record if you threw those 3 against them every year right now.
Click to expand...

So what you are saying is: Georgia and Florida hired good football coaches that took their teams to the top of the pecking order in 3 years, and we hired another coach that can't find is own a$$ with both hands in year 3.

I agree.
 
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#13
#13
We could do like another school did and hire a WR coach that wasn't very good at that job and turn our program back into a national power! Yes that's what Clemson did when they hired Dabo Sweeney back in 2008. He was a WR coach and not a vaunted one at that. Now look! It's about the culture 1st which leads to recruiting, coaching staff and the results.

1st 4 yrs he was 29-20
Since then he is 106 - 12 with 2 Natty's and 5 playoff appearances!
2-2 against Bama
3-0 against Oklahoma
3-0 against Ohio St.
1-1 against LSU

In contrast Fulmer hired a guy with ultra solid credentials:
Assistant coaching career
Pruitt began coaching as a student assistant on the 1997 Alabama team, where he worked primarily under defensive backs coach Curley Hallman. He then worked as an assistant coach under his father at Plainview High School (1998 and 2000) and Fort Payne (2001–2003). He coached defensive backs in 1999 at West Alabama, where he earned his degree. He served as an assistant coach under Rush Propst at Hoover High School from 2004 to 2006, winning state championships in 2004 and 2005. While at Hoover, he appeared on the first season of the MTV reality television show, Two-A-Days, which aired in the fall of 2006 and focused on the lives of students at Hoover.
In 2007, Pruitt joined the Alabama coaching staff as Director of Player Development. Following Alabama's 2009 national championship season, Pruitt was named the Tide's defensive backs coach. During his first season in 2010, Alabama's secondary led the SEC in passing efficiency, and included one All-American, Mark Barron. The 2011 Alabama secondary led the nation in pass defense and passing efficiency, and included three All-Americans, Barron, Dre Kirkpatrick, and DeQuan Menzie. Both Barron and Kirkpatrick were drafted in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft. Pruitt's 2012 secondary ranked seventh nationally in pass defense, and included Jim Thorpe finalist Dee Milliner. He was named National Recruiter of the Year in 2012 by 247Sports.
In 2013, Pruitt was hired as the defensive coordinator at Florida State. In his lone season with the Seminoles, his defense ranked number one in scoring defense, allowing just 12.1 points per game, and ranked third in total defense, helping the 2013 Seminoles win the national championship.
In 2014, Pruitt joined the Georgia coaching staff as the defensive coordinator. His 2014 defensive unit finished 17th nationally in total defense, and finished in the top ten in turnover margin and passing yards allowed. Pruitt's 2015 unit at Georgia finished the season ranked seventh nationally in total defense, and led the nation in fewest passing yards allowed per game.
Pruitt returned to Alabama as defensive coordinator in 2016, replacing Kirby Smart, who had left to become the head coach at Georgia. His 2016 defensive unit led the nation in scoring defense and rushing defense, and was ranked second in total defense. His 2017 Alabama defensive unit finished the regular season ranked second in total defense and first in scoring defense. The unit was part of the team that won the National Championship in the 2017 season.
 
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#15
#15
Doctrippin said:
People need to calm down. Without Josh Dobbs, Butch Jones would have been gone by year 3. Pruitt has laid a good foundation in recruiting, but he may not have the right coaching staff. A lot of what happened was on Chaney. He's on the hot seat for sure right now. You've got a 5 star O line underperforming and 0 out of 4 QB's able to manage a game.
Click to expand...
Yes he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t make it to the end of the season.
 
#16
#16
Josh Dobbs was the only thing that kept Butch from hitting 4-8 and getting canned a lot sooner. If you can't tell that this team is significantly improved on both sides of the ball from Butch's 2017 team (post-Dobbs), then you simply don't know football. Pruitt finally got us a win against Auburn and has beat Muschamp two years in a row. Clearly this program has more progress to make and is still capable of putting up a really bad performance like the UK game...but most of the issues at this point really center around inconsistent QB play. They've got to get Bailey ready and get Maurer up to speed and healthy. Maurer's injury and Bailey being quarantined really set back the development of a good back-up/viable competition for JG.

It's an unfortunate situation to be in, but I'm more focused on seeing if they get those guys ready. The team had a terrible start last season and it got turned around...and that was bad play on both sides of the ball. This time there are small things to fix on defense and the QB situation needs to be fixed. I think it will get figured out.
 
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#22
#22
For the first time in the Head-Coach-Struggle Era (HCS), I do not think a (the) coach needs to go at the first real sign that the wheels might be falling off the bus. However, it seems as thought he is at a very real risk of losing the team. Once that happens, all bets are off.

Though I am baffled by the QB situation and the press conference and the firing (more so what led up to the firing) of the D-line coach.
 
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#25
#25
Doctrippin said:
People need to calm down. Without Josh Dobbs, Butch Jones would have been gone by year 3. Pruitt has laid a good foundation in recruiting, but he may not have the right coaching staff. A lot of what happened was on Chaney. He's on the hot seat for sure right now. You've got a 5 star O line underperforming and 0 out of 4 QB's able to manage a game.
Click to expand...
0 out of 4 qb’s able to manage a game? We know about 2 but not the other 2. That is on Pruitt.
 
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