Well over 2 years ago or so Jeremy Priutt was hired as Tennessee's HFC. Most people in Tennessee were mostly postiive. The "national" media was on the fence and thought Tennessee had the bottom rung of jobs and Tennessee was left out of some of the big name splash hires. So lets take a look at where Pruitt stands in relation to all the other hires of that season.
*******Order is Athlon Sports before the start of 2018 season*******
Scott Frost..........Nebraska 9-14
Dan Mullen....Florida 20-5
Chip Kelly.........ULCA 7-16
Jimbo Fisher......TAMU 16-8
Willie Tagert......FSU 10-12 (FIRED)
Joe Moorehead....MSU 13-11
Chad Morris........Arkansas 4-18 (FIRED)
Kevin Sumlin........Arizona 9-14
Jeremy Pruitt.......Tennessee 12-12
Mario Cristobal....Oregon 19-7
Thoughts??? Discussion..... Did Tennesssee get a good coach? money's worth. I know they did get better bang for their buck than the TAMU crowd. 70 Million for 10 years and they just went 7-5. I bet if they re-ranked them it would be
Dan Mullen
Mario
Jimbo
Pruitt
Moorehead....maybe?
Too many variables but let’s look at record:
A&M went 8-5 before Fisher and they went 7-6 his first year and are sitting at the same record at best. He was playing with an average recruiting class of 13 this last year.
Mullen inherited a 4 win team and has won ten games two years in a row. He may get to 11. He did it with an average recruiting class of 11.5 this last year.
Moorhead inherited a 9-4 team and went 8-5 and 7-6 at best this year. He had an average recruiting class of a rank of 25.75 this last year.
Tennessee inherited a 4-7 team and has improved to 5-7 and 8-5 at best. He did it with an average recruiting class ranking of 16.25 this year.
I think the clear front runner is Mullen. None of these teams averaged a top 10 or down recruiting class. He is close to tripling the number of wins they had before him. Morehead inherited a program trending in the right direction. The only reason he got the job was because one of the best coaches in the SEC left. He may get two or three less wins this year.
Pruitt also inherited a 4 win team. He possibly could have gotten to ten wins this year, but I think we were in much worse shape than FL despite having the same record they did in 2017. I think this being Chaney’s first year here also hurt our O in the beginning of the year and Pruitt’s D wasn’t tracking yet. On top of that we clearly had some toxicity to deal with.
Still, Mullen gets the nod here. We are lucky to have gotten Pruitt after the mess of a coaching search that included missing on Mullen.
I hope Pruitt can do it. I knew it was a big mistake not to jump on Mullen when we had the chance, but that doesn’t mean that Pruitt won’t build a D that can stop Mullens’ O over time. He has done it before.
Outside of the SEC is Cristobal. He inherited a 7-6 team that was already trending upwards from a 4-8 team in a weak conference. It is only a three game improvement. Cristobal played with an average of 16th recruiting class. I have to put the job behind what Pruitt is doing.