This is a silly take. You can't really compare fans to coaches/players. You just can't. It means more to the players/coaches because for a season they're investing more into the program than any fan could ever think of contributing. But, by the same token, the players are here today and gone tomorrow. Some will be loyal to the university the rest of their life, some will not. Few of the coaches will. When Pruitt is finished here, he'll point his car south on I-75 towards the Alabama line, hire an agent to put his house on the market, and never look back. The fans, though, were here before all of this, and they'll be here long after all of this. They're paying hard-earned dollars to buy an over-priced place to park their butt on 18 inches of metal, and to buy over-priced hot dogs and watered-down fountain drinks, so that scholarships can be provided to the players and salaries can be be paid to the coaches. Many of them grew up in East Tennessee and have spent all their lives here, and a lot of them are alumni of the university. They damn sure have earned the right to have an opinion about the program.