Rucker: Pruitt changing culture for Kongbo, Vols
WES RUCKER
Jonathan Kongbo lives in the same town he’s lived in the past two years, but it doesn’t feel like it.
The senior linebacker earlier this week became the most recent Tennessee player to suggest the transition to new head coach Jeremy Pruitt has made Knoxville feel like a new place.
“I mean, the culture is completely different,” Kongbo said before Thursday’s practice at Haslam Field. “Like I keep telling my parents, it doesn’t even feel like the same place, just as far as the culture that’s been instilled here. It’s just completely different.”
“The discipline and accountability is at a whole new level now,” he said. “I feel like even us as players now, we don’t back down or shy down about calling each other out no more.”
Junior linebacker Darrell Taylor made a similar remark last week, saying Pruitt and his assistants will take time to make sure every player — the fast learners, the slow learners, the upperclassmen, the newcomers, the starters and the walk-ons — understand the scheme. If a player struggles to pick up a concept, they’ll find a different way to teach it. All they ask for in return is effort.
Kongbo said twice that he feels “more-equipped” than ever heading into a season, but he added with his next breath that no one is — or at least should be — thinking about the results yet.
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