Talking to local reporters, some ex-players and others, below is what I have been able to gather about current state of football program. Now this all comes from informal chats and people claiming they know this stuff so take is for what it is worth.
- Fulmer still likes to act like he is the head coach. He meddles into everything from basic practice to game planning, personnel etc. Pruitt is sick of being micro-managed.
- There are three factions in coaching staff:
- Tee and Jay are Fulmer's boys and they act very much like it too. Tee in particular acts like he is above head coach and has been cause of a lot of friction with in staff.
- Pruitt, Friend, Nerdimeyer, Weinke are in another camp. Tee and Jay particularly dislike Nerdimeyer
- Derek Ansely, Chaney and Shelton Felton generally stay away from these groups.
- Ansley has a weak personality and deflects any pressure to Pruitt. Lacks leadership.
- Pruitt micro-manages the offense through Chaney while Tee tries to run his own stuff. Chaney is very disengaged and even does not run a lot of meetings. He was not like this in his previous stunt here. He just stopped caring.
- Shelton Felton, Osovet, Brambaugh etc are/were good coaches who are just caught in amazing dysfunction. Brambaugh got fired because he was tired of Pruitt dissing DL all the time and he got into heated argument with Pruitt a lot.
- Tee tells people around him that he will be HC here someday and he will run this place like Belichik runs Patriots.
- Pruitt will be forced to let go of his guys (Friend gone, Nerdeimeyer and Weinke next). Tee will likely be Co-OC for 2021. Pruitt is fed up with Fulmer and would be happy to take his buyout and leave.
- Fulmer has a lot of boosters support and Pruitt still feels like outsider.
- Team is completely divided.
The amount of dysfunction and politics at UTAD is disgusting. Fulmer is root of it. Pruitt does not have the personality to be a HC who can handle all this and Tee is an opportunist who is waiting his turn fueling the infighting.