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Warrior credits frank Pruitt meeting for changing Vols' season
By WES RUCKER
Warrior credits frank Pruitt meeting for changing Vols' season
By WES RUCKER
Warrior credits frank Pruitt meeting for changing Vols' season
Most people who live in the Greater Knoxville Area and just about everywhere in the state of Tennessee weren’t happy with the Vols’ start to this football season.
It was anything but ideal, but it was the reality Tennessee had built for itself, and Pruitt wanted to make sure everyone in the program knew that.
There was a frank discussion between Pruitt and the players in the locker room moments after their 34-3 loss at Florida on Sept. 21, and a slightly-more-pleasant meeting after the airplane landed back in Knoxville later that night.
One of Tennessee’s few seniors — safety Nigel Warrior — didn’t hide his happiness in the moments after Saturday’s big win on a cold night in the Midwest.
“It feels good,” Warrior said. “The past couple years, you know, hasn’t gone our way. Just being able to go to a bowl game this year, to turn it around this year, it feels amazing.”
Warrior said there was “no doubt” in his mind that Pruitt’s two post-Florida meetings with the players set the stone for the team’s mid-season reboot.
“I would say, you know, that whole meeting was … it was, you know, ‘If you here, and you really gonna be here with us, you gonna promise to give your all for the rest of these games,’” Warrior said. “It was, ‘Are y’all gonna really turn it around? Are you gonna play for your brother?’ Everybody agreed. And as you can see, we changed it around. We came closer. We became one.
“Really, I’m just thankful for those guys, man. They’re taking me out with a boom, and I can’t complain about it.”
Warrior — who had six tackles, one tackle for loss and two pass breakups against Missouri — said personal responsibility was the main message of the meetings.
“Going back to the meeting, [it was about] being there for one another,” he said. “And being there for one another goes back to just being more into your plays, knowing more, having more awareness on the field, talking, having more communication. That’s what he laid out for us. We just listened, really.”
Warrior — a son of former Vols and NFL star Dale Carter — said leaving Tennessee in a better place than it’s been “the past little bit” is something that’s really important to him, and he said Saturday’s win was another big step in that direction.
“It feels amazing,” he said. “It’s not just us [seniors]. It’s from the freshmen to the sophomores to the juniors, but being a senior in this team, it feels amazing. It shows that we can turn around a bad season to something pretty good. I’m just happy to be a part of it, man.”