{"id":4480,"date":"2018-05-23T17:41:03","date_gmt":"2018-05-23T21:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/?p=4480"},"modified":"2018-05-23T17:41:03","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T21:41:03","slug":"wilson-excited-fulmer-pruitt-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/2018\/05\/23\/wilson-excited-fulmer-pruitt-era\/","title":{"rendered":"WILSON EXCITED FOR FULMER, PRUITT ERA"},"content":{"rendered":"

UT Sports Information<\/em><\/p>\n

The captain of the 1998 national champions was at the Atlanta Big Orange Caravan on Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

ATLANTA \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0When Al Wilson speaks, people listen. It was that way when he was the Vols\u2019 captain during the 1998 national championship run, and it\u2019s that way today.<\/p>\n

The former Tennessee All-America linebacker was on hand at the latest Big Orange Caravan event on Tuesday night at SunTrust Park.<\/p>\n

Wilson spoke at the event, and his message was clear: He\u2019s excited for this fall and the direction Tennessee football is headed.<\/p>\n

Inside the Atlanta Braves\u2019 stadium, Wilson said the hires of Director of Athletics Phillip Fulmer and head football coach Jeremy Pruitt are home runs.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Fulmer is my guy,\u201d said Wilson, who played for Fulmer from 1995 to 1998. \u201cWe\u2019ve been through a lot together over the years and it\u2019s great to see him where he is now, having an opportunity to become the athletic director and to get this program back to where it\u2019s supposed to be. I\u2019m super excited for Coach.”<\/p>\n

Wilson was the heart and soul of the 1998 Tennessee team, registering 77 tackles and four sacks despite missing three games due to injury. He was a first round pick by the Denver Broncos in 1999 and went to five Pro Bowls over eight seasons.<\/p>\n

He now lives in the Atlanta area and visited with Pruitt for the first time at Tuesday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super excited for the way he\u2019s trying to bring Tennessee football back and the direction in which he\u2019s going,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cHe\u2019s getting some good quality players to come in, and at the end of the day that\u2019s what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow 1998 national champion Fred White was also in attendance at SunTrust Park in addition to several former Tennessee football players. Wilson and White posed for photos with fans and signed autographs throughout the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t believe it\u2019s been 20 years since we had a chance to win that national championship, but I\u2019ll tell you, it\u2019s a good feeling to know that Tennessee fans still adore and have love for what we did 20 years ago,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s basketball coach Rick Barnes and women\u2019s basketball coach Holly Warlick joined Fulmer and Pruitt at SunTrust Park, posing for photos with fans, signing autographs and participating in a Q & A program with Bob Kesling to cap the night.<\/p>\n

The UT Knoxville Office of Alumni Affairs awarded a scholarship to Noah White during what was another fun event for fans and alumni.<\/p>\n

The Big Orange Caravan wraps up for 2018 on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the Tri-Cities at the Meadowview Conference Resort and Convention Center in Kingsport, Tenn.<\/p>\n

Registration for all stops is open at\u00a0BigOrangeCaravan.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TRI-CITIES BIG ORANGE CARAVAN INFORMATION<\/strong>
\nDate: Thursday, May 24
\nTime: 5:30 \u2013 7:30 p.m. ET
\nVenue: Meadowview Conference Resort and Convention Center in Kingsport
\nAddress: 1901 Meadowview Pkwy, Kingsport, TN 37660<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UT Sports Information The captain of the 1998 national champions was at the Atlanta Big Orange Caravan on Tuesday night.\u00a0 ATLANTA \u2013\u00a0When Al Wilson speaks, people listen. It was that way when he was the Vols\u2019 captain during the 1998 national championship run, and it\u2019s that way today. The former Tennessee All-America linebacker was on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennessee-vols-football"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/files\/2018\/05\/unnamed-4.jpg?fit=900%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4482,"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions\/4482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.volnation.com\/freaknotes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}