Author Archives: Brad Shepard

Tennessee Vols 2018 Recruiting Class: Early Signing Day Defensive Capsules

Yesterday, we took a look at Tennessee’s early offensive signees. Now, let’s examine the five defenders who the Vols desperately need to come in and provide some immediate help.

With defensive-minded head coach Jeremy Pruitt, defensive coordinator Kevin Sherrer and long-time SEC assistants Tracy Rocker and Chris Rumph, along with former Vol Terry Fair leading the charge on defense, players should be able to get plenty of coaching.

Let’s take a look at the guys who we know will be Vols in 2018, based on them signing last week.

Greg Emerson 6’3″ 280-pound 4-star defensive lineman; Jackson, Tenn. (North Side HS)

Tennessee has long had success recruiting in the Jackson area, and after that city yielded stud offensive lineman Trey Smith a year ago, the Vols highest-rated prospect hailed from there this year, too.

Emerson — who broke his fibula and fractured his ankle with a gruesome injury at The Opening that cost him his senior year — stayed true to his pledge through the coaching change, and he is one of the prospects who could benefit most from the Pruitt regime. Emerson wanted to stick at defensive end, anyway, and now he appears to have the perfect body type to play that spot in a 3-4 base defense.

The Jackson native has violent hands and is extremely strong. His first step may not be good enough to stay outside in a 4-3, but he’s ideal for this new base. He is a great athlete for his size, and he is a consistent weapon when healthy. Since he’s a bit raw, he’ll need to be coached up on a variety of moves, but he has very moldable assets with which Tracy Rocker can work.

 

Brant Lawless 6’3″, 285-pound 4-star defensive tackle; Nashville, Tenn. (Nashville Christian HS)

Lawless was the first of the “Big Three” defensive line prospects in Tennessee to commit to the previous regime, and D’Andre Litaker and Emerson followed. It’s unclear whether Litaker will be part of this class, but Lawless signed quickly after it was clear Pruitt wanted him.

Lawless looks like he will be able to add 15-20 good pounds and play inside in a 3-4 scheme. He isn’t fast enough to play on the exterior. He still needs work to be able to be a difference-maker in the SEC, but he, too, has plenty of traits that will be enough for a good DL coach to help mold. Lawless will have the opportunity to come in and play right away with all the holes UT has in the trenches, but he may be best-served with a year in the weight room and with a redshirt.

It’s going to be interesting to see how Lawless is ultimately utilized. If it’s on the interior, he needs to put on some weight and also to gain some strength. Perhaps the biggest improvement from the Jones era could come on the defensive line, where it wasn’t uncommon for Vols to get pushed around and opponents to dominate UT running the football.

It’s up to big guys like Lawless to make sure that doesn’t happen in the Pruitt era.

 

Jordan Allen 6’4″, 230-pound 3-star weak-side defensive end/outside linebacker; San Francisco (City College of San Francisco)

The last of the Early Signing Day commitments for Pruitt came late Wednesday night, but it wasn’t the least of the pledges.

That’s when pass-rushing outside linebacker Jordan Allen of City College of San Francisco decided to choose Tennessee over schools like TCU, Michigan State and Arizona State. This is after he told the Vols “thanks but no thanks” when they initially reached out to him to try to get him to visit on that final weekend before the dead period. Once Pruitt called and got involved, Allen decided to visit.

He ultimately signed.

Yes, Allen is raw, but he also possesses the size and speed needed for Tennessee to transition as smoothly as possibly to the 3-4 base. He’s a big, athletic kid who can play with his hand down but also standing up, and he’s expected to step right in and play for the Vols on the second level. It’s going to be interesting to see where Darrin Kirkland Jr., Will Ignont, Shanon Reid, Solon Page III and Quart’e Sapp fit in this offense, but it looks like — at least on the surface — that players such as Sapp, Austin Smith and Allen can play a “Jack” style pass-rusher.

If that’s the case, Allen is a necessity. Can he step right in and provide meaningful snaps? Any time you swing at a JUCO kid, it’s a crap-shoot. But when schools like TCU and MSU want you, you’re obviously a guy who a lot of defensive-minded programs believe can play. You don’t recruit JUCOs to stand on the sideline.

 

Kingston Harris 6’3″, 285-pound 3-star defensive lineman; Orlando, Fla. (IMG Academy)

One of the most puzzling pickups for Pruitt in his first few days was IMG Academy defensive tackle Kingston Harris, who had a difficult time cracking the rotation at one of the most loaded high school programs in the country. But that doesn’t mean he can’t play.

Harris was recruited by schools such as Maryland, Rutgers, Central Florida and others, but when Pruitt offered him and Harris visited the weekend before the dead period, he ultimately decided he wanted to play SEC football. The question is: How soon can he play?

Tennessee severed ties with former commitments like Jamarcus Chatman, and Litaker’s status remains in the air, but Pruitt actually laid eyes on Harris, who has the type of big body needed to clog up run lanes up front in a 3-4, and there was obviously something Pruitt and Co. saw in Harris that they loved and believed they could unlock. It would be a surprise if Harris was able to step right in and play, but he probably won’t be needed to.

Tennessee is going after a lot of guys it believes can provide depth in ’18 on the defensive line, but Harris more of a piece to the future. He needs to work on his body and especially his technique, but he looks strong and has the size and frame to pack on weight. This is a project Pruitt deemed worthwhile. With the defensive staff he’s assembled, the Vols won’t have to take too many “projects” in the future.

 

Paxton Brooks 6’5″, 170-pound 3-star punter; West Columbia, S.C. (Airport HS)

Tennessee once picked up a commitment from punter Skyler DeLong, who visited the Vols and committed on the trip. He flipped to Alabama almost immediately when he visited the Crimson Tide.

But UT moved onto Brooks, and he is an ideal prospect to take “Punter U” into the next generation post-Trevor Daniel. He is rated as the nation’s No. 2-rated punter and a 5-star prospect by Kohl’s Professional Kicking Camps, and he is the type of player who has the opportunity to step right in and play. The Vols may need for him to because Daniel is out of eligibility, and he was one of the best punters in the country a season ago.

He chose Tennessee over offers from several schools, including North Carolina State, and he’ll punt in the Under-Armor All-American Game. This could be the player who makes the biggest impact from this class on the field in 2018.

Tennessee Vols 2018 Recruiting Class: Early Signing Day Offensive Capsules

Tennessee’s 2018 recruiting class was looking rough for a while after Butch Jones was fired, the prior administration — led by rogue athletic director John Currie — botched hiring his replacement and Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt was brought in to be UT’s new head coach.

In nine days, the man who has orchestrated a championship-caliber defense in Tuscaloosa and helped build a recruiting machine that leads to top class after top class salvaged an early signing period of which Vols fans could be proud.

This 2018 haul was never going to be a highly ranked group after Jones left, and it especially wasn’t after Pruitt severed ties with nearly half that class. But the guys he ultimately brought in surged UT nearly 40 spots in the rankings.

Work remains to make this class strong, but there are time — and spots remaining — to do it. Currently, Tennessee has the nation’s 27th-ranked recruiting class according to the 247Sports Composite. Needless to say, that’s not great. But it won’t end up that way. Pruitt still has some targets who could help the Vols reach a class that will wind up from 12-15 potentially.

Yes, losing offensive tackle Cade Mays (Georgia), safety Trey Dean (Florida) and quarterback Adrian Martinez (Nebraska) hurt. But the gains were good, too. Let’s take a look at UT’s 13 early offensive signees.

***

Alontae Taylor 6’0″, 184-pound 4-star wide receiver; Manchester, Tenn. (Coffee County Central HS)

It was a topsy-turvy recruitment for Taylor, who flipped from Vanderbilt to Tennessee early in the recruiting process but enjoyed recruiting, listening to other programs who came calling. Many of those extended offers, and Georgia seemed to be the biggest threat in the end.

After he decommitted, Taylor gave Pruitt the opportunity to re-recruit him and became the new coach’s first commitment after visiting Knoxville the first weekend Pruitt was onboard. Alabama recruited him to play defensive back, so Taylor wanted to verify he’d be a receiver at UT. Once that happened, he was back on board.

That’s big news for Tennessee. Taylor is the type of athlete with the “suddenness” UT lacks on that side of the ball. He played quarterback in high school, so he’s used to having the ball in his hands, and while he may need a little polish catching the ball, he’s a terror in space. Blessed with great quickness and football speed, Taylor almost certainly will have a role in this offense early. He was the biggest senior playmaker in the state.

 

Dominick Wood-Anderson 6’5″, 245-pound 4-star JUCO tight end; Yuma, Ariz. (Arizona Western College)

Few JUCO prospect had as much drama surrounding his recruitment as Wood-Anderson, who is the nation’s top junior college player at his position. He was thought to be a huge Alabama lean and commitment for a long time, and Pruitt wasn’t his lead recruiter with the Tide, either.

But when Pruitt came on in Knoxville, he desperately needed an impact tight end. Currently, the Vols have Latrell Bumphus (who is perhaps better-suited for defense), as well as Austin Pope and former walk-on Eli Wolf. That’s basically it. Though UT had a commitment in Knoxville (Farragut) Jacob Warren, he needs about 30-40 pounds to be able to survive in the SEC. So, the Vols needed an impact player who could step right in and take the snaps vacated by departing seniors Ethan Wolf and Jakob Johnson.

DWA is a big, athletic prospect who can catch the ball and do things with the football after the catch. He reminds me a little of Mychal Rivera, who left UT and has enjoyed a decent NFL career. Brian Niedermeyer deserves a ton of credit for getting DWA on campus, and Pruitt deserves a ton for getting him signed.

Let’s hope this Tennessee staff is better at utilizing tight ends than Alabama.

 

Jerome Carvin 6’4″, 330-pound 4-star offensive lineman; Memphis, Tenn. (Cordova HS)

Losing long-time UT commit and Vol legacy Cade Mays hurts, especially to division rival Georgia. But Pruitt was able to salvage some of the in-state beef when he swooped in and convinced Carvin to come to Knoxville. That’s a major win for a prospect wanted by the prior staff as well as many as the top programs in the country.

The Vols were able to get him to sign despite him not visiting the final week before the early signing period. He chose UT over Mississippi State and Florida, where he’d developed a relationship with new coach Dan Mullen when he was in Starkville. Had Mullen stayed with the Bulldogs, it would have been an uphill battle for Tennessee to get him.

As it turned out, the Vols not only wanted him but also his teammate, 3-star running back Jeremy Banks, who was a 4-star on some services. Carvin also has a relationship with Smith and Drew Richmond, so that was a bonus for the Vols, too.

Carvin is a big, ol’ mean lineman who is country strong. He needs to be coached, taught technique, and he certainly needs to work on his drops, spacing and hand placement. But he has violent hands and a strong first push. He is the type of player who should be easy to teach, and though he probably projects as an interior lineman, the Vols need help everywhere on the offensive front, so he’s got the opportunity to step in and play.

It would be better for UT, however, if the Vols could sign a slew of JUCO offensive linemen to build depth right away and allow guys like Carvin to either play in a reserve role or to redshirt.

 

Jeremy Banks 6’2″, 215-pound 3-star running back; Memphis, Tenn. (Cordova HS)

How in the world is a power runner like Banks from your own state not recruited to come to Tennessee when teams like Florida, Nebraska, UCLA and others wanted him on their team?

Butch Jones, ladies and gentlemen.

Pruitt identified him early on, and it wasn’t as a package-deal situation to get Carvin, either. Banks deserved a scholarship in his own rights, and the Vols needed a power back of his ilk with John Kelly entering his senior season. Tennessee already has speedier backs such as Ty Chandler, Carlin Fils-Aime and Tim Jordan, but the Vols need a guy who can get between the tackles and carry the load. Banks looks like the dude to do it.

He’s already big, and that’s before he gets in a college weight program. Pruitt wants to add another power back in this class, too, but Banks provides a need right away with some beef running behind what is expected to be a much bigger offensive line in 2018. It looks like Pruitt and offensive coordinator Tyson Helton (not to mention offensive line coach Will Friend) want to get back to the power running game (PRAISE GOD!) at Tennessee and get away from all this finesse crap. That’s music to my ears.

Banks is a pivotal piece of that. He doesn’t have breakaway speed, but he has strength, power, size and looks like the ideal type of running back for this system.

 

JT Shrout 6’3″, 190-pound 3-star pro-style quarterback; Newhall, Calif. (William S. Hart HS)

Once Adrian Martinez decided he was going to flip from Tennessee to Nebraska, the Vols were going to have to take a project at quarterback in this class. To be fair, though, Martinez was far from a “sure thing” considering he missed his entire senior season after suffering an injury. The Pruitt regime also severed ties with Florida quarterback Michael Penix, who wound up inking with Indiana and former UT coordinator Mike DeBord.

Meanwhile, Tennessee went fishing for a high-upside quarterback, and it didn’t take the Vols long to reach out to a vital target. It didn’t take long for Shrout to reciprocate the love, either.

The long-time California commitment left his homestate for a weekend visit to Knoxville the week before he was to sign. When he dropped his location via Twitter, UT’s fan base was all over him, trying to get him to come to play for the Vols. He fell in love with the area, decommitted from the Bears shortly after returning home and decided to be Tennessee’s quarterback in this class.

Yes, it’s a major red flag that Shrout threw 25 interceptions as a senior, but he has all the tools. Blessed with good size, excellent arm strength, adequate touch and sharp mechanics, he wowed scouts at a camp prior to his senior season. While it’s obvious he has to learn how to better read defenses, Shrout doesn’t need to step right in and start with Jarrett Guarantano, Quinten Dormady and Will McBride already on campus. If he is molded by Tyson Helton and is a quick study, he’ll have every opportunity to battle for that job.

 

Jacob Warren 6’6″, 211-pound 3-star tight end; Knoxville, Tenn. (Farragut HS)

Pruitt told Warren upon their meeting that — in so many words — he wouldn’t stand a chance in the rugged SEC unless he added weight. Thankfully for Warren, he has a very projectable frame and should be able to do that rather quickly. He needs to, and the Vols need him to.

As noted in the DWA blurb, Tennessee doesn’t have a lot of depth at the position, and Helton’s offense requires at least one (and sometimes two) quality tight ends. Warren looks like the type of athlete who can develop into a great player on the next level. He’s big and possesses great hands and has a knack for big plays. He’s just SO. DANG. SKINNY. He was used as a pass-catching tight end for the Admirals, and that’s the role he’ll fill at UT.

But if he’s on the field in 2018, it’s because Tennessee is in desperate need of bodies, Warren packed on some pounds or a combination of both. If there was ever a guy who needed a year to get bigger and stronger, it’s Warren. But this is a great local kid who has a future in an offense that will actually know how to utilize him.

Warren is one of those commitments you have to put on the top shelf and wait a while, but it’s like Christmas morning when he finally blossoms.

 

Tanner Antonutti 6’5″, 260-pound 3-star offensive tackle; Nashville, Tenn. (Ensworth HS)

Another player who needs a year to get in the weight room, get bigger and get stronger is Antonutti, a guy who wasn’t a for-sure take under the previous regime. Once LSU decided it wanted the Ensworth product, however, the Vols offered, too. Then, the long-time UT fan committed to the Vols and actually stuck with his pledge, unlike some other instate linemen.

The Vols will eventually be glad he did. Antonutti is one of the most athletic linemen in the entire class, and once he puts on 35-40 pounds, he will possess the kind of athleticism and skills to be a strong tackle. When you watch film on Antonutti, what stands out is how strong he is despite not having the weight of other linemen. He’s also very athletic and loves the Vols. Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State and others also saw those assets in Antonutti.

He played tight end and defensive line for Ensworth and was a finalist for the Mr. Football award, so his athleticism is noted. If he packs on weight and continues to develop, he has the chance to be a big part of the future of the offensive line — just most likely not in 2018.

 

Ollie Lane 6’5″, 307-pound 3-star offensive lineman; Corryton, Tenn. (Gibbs HS)

Lane is another Tennessee fan who ultimately chose to stick with his commitment to the nearby Vols. He was coveted by Georgia, Virginia Tech, Ole Miss, Mississippi State and others. He looks like an ideal player to slide in and play center in the future for the Vols, though it wouldn’t be a surprise if he wound up at guard, too.

Lane is a burly lineman who looks like a strong candidate to provide depth to the interior of Tennessee’s line. Just how much does it mean to Lane to play for the Vols? He told 247Sports’ Danny Parker that inking with UT “means the world to me.” That’s the kind of kid you want to sign, who will do what it takes to make the body changes and time commitment to be great.

Lane needs to add strength and needs to learn from Friend when it comes to technique, but he has a lot of positive assets that should make him a strong candidate to take over on the inside and battle Riley Locklear, among others, for that starting center spot. Lane has put on some 20-plus pounds in the past year to prepare to play in the SEC.

It’s going to be interesting to see if any of these youngsters on the offensive front are ready to help right away.

Tennessee Vols Early Signing Period: Shrout, Banks, Carvin Pledge

Tennessee would have liked to hit a home run today as the first ever early signing period kicked off, but thanks to a coaching change and a short window for new head man Jeremy Pruitt, UT will have to settle for a ground-rule double.

Several notable junior college linemen elected to sign elsewhere Wednesday, but Tennessee still wound up with some major wins at key positions of need. They’re positioning themselves for a huge month of January that will require a whirlwind, a lot of swings at high-profile recruits and ultimately equal parts excitement and disappointment.

Wednesday appears to be a microcosm of that. The biggest loss was LSU commit and massive offensive lineman Badara Traore, who visited Knoxville last weekend and probably would have been a Day One starter. Instead, he chose to stick with the Tigers, with whom he’d built a long-term relationship.

Pruitt’s frantic jaunt toward the finish line will include plenty of wins and losses, but UT fans excited about the future of the Pruitt regime should focus on the wins. Tennessee has already received signings from punter Paxton Brooks, offensive lineman Ollie Lane, defensive lineman Kingston Harris, and offensive lineman Tanner Antonutti, offensive tackle Jerome Carvin, quarterback JT Shrout, and running back Jeremy Banks, and also expects receiver Alontae Taylor, defensive lineman Greg Emerson,  tight end Jacob Warren, and defensive lineman Brant Lawless to sign as well.

We’ll have expanded capsules on everyone in the coming days here on Gameday on Rocky Top, but for now, let’s take a look at some of the big wins already today.

Jerome Carvin, 6’4″, 330-pound offensive tackle Memphis (Cordova HS)

It stung to the core for Tennessee not to ultimately get the signature of 5-star stud legacy Cade Mays, but landing Carvin helped ease that pain tremendously.

Carvin was thought to be leaning to Mississippi State still, even though Dan Mullen left for Florida. He almost certainly would have signed with the Bulldogs had Mullen stayed, and the coach tried to recruit him to Florida. But Pruitt has recruited Carvin heavily since arriving at UT.

Though Carvin couldn’t get a trip to Knoxville last weekend, he has a long-standing relationship with the university as a long-time target. He’s been there before, and he’s been considering the Vols for a long time. When buddy and teammate Jeremy Banks decided on Tennessee, it made sense for Carvin to go, too.

He’s a big, brawny lineman who can step right in and compete for playing time on a porous unit. Carvin isn’t an elite prospect, but he has the size and strength to be a very good one. Once he learns footwork and mechanics, such as hand placement and a dropstep, he’ll be a good one. He’s going to get some great coaching from Will Friend, too.

JT Shrout, 6’3″, 190-pound quarterback Newhall, California (William S. Hart HS)

Tennessee got its man.

Although Pruitt and Co. tried to hang onto Adrian Martinez despite him not being an ideal fit for what he and Tyson Helton want to do offensively (Helton didn’t recruit him to USC), he ultimately signed with Nebraska on Wednesday.

Pruitt offered another Cali quarterback, and he’s one-for-one in offers/commits. The Vols got a last-minute visit from Shrout last weekend, he said he had an “outstanding” visit and ultimately decommitted from the Bears last night and chose Tennessee today. That’s a testament to what kind of recruiting this staff is capable of, especially considering Shrout had been committed to Cal since last summer.

It took Pruitt a week to swing him, and the lure of playing SEC ball at a big-time program was too much to pass up.

Shrout has all the tools, including pristine mechanics and a live arm. He’s got the size, and though he needs to add weight, he has the frame to do so. Obviously, his 25 interceptions a year ago is a major red flag, but he’s got coachable attributes. They’ll have to teach the kid discernment, but he is a pro-style quarterback, and it looks like that’s the type of offense UT wants to run.

So, that gives him a leg up potentially on the other underclassmen on Tennessee’s roster.

Jeremy Banks, 6’2″, 216-pound running back, Memphis (Cordova HS)

With schools such as Nebraska, UCLA, Miami, Iowa State and Florida knocking down his door, it’s hard to understand why Banks was never on Tennessee’s radar with the previous staff.

Pruitt prioritized the big back since coming on, and the Vols parlayed that love into a commitment from the in-state product. He and Carvin make two big pledges from the Volunteer State.

With the Vols already set with smaller, speedier backs in Ty Chandler, Tim Jordan and Carlin Fils-aime, they needed a load-carrier. Banks looks like that guy. Though UT commitment Anthony Grant won’t be part of this class, Pruitt decided to go in a different direction with who he thought would be an every-down type guy. He quickly zeroed in on Banks (a 247Sports composite 3-star player who is a 4-star on Rivals).

Banks visited last weekend rather than go to Florida, and he came away from Rocky Top knowing that’s where he wanted to spend the rest of his amateur career. He’s a big coup for UT in a relationship that was built quickly but firmly.

Reading the Tennessee Tea Leaves: Vols Looking Good for Quarterback JT Shrout

What wound up being a surprise visit from a “mystery” quarterback last weekend appears as though it will manifest itself as a Tennessee quarterback commitment.

JT Shrout, a 6’3″, 190-pound quarterback from William S. Hart High School in Newhall, California, and a one-time California Bears commitment was going to choose between UT and Cal tomorrow.

On Tuesday night, he officially decommitted from coach Justin Wilcox’s Bears, according to his official Twitter account. This seems to be good news for Tennessee.

Though Shrout threw for 3,064 yards as a senior, he tossed an eye-popping 25 interceptions to go along with 27 touchdown passes. He’s still the No. 26 pro-style quarterback in the nation, according to 247Sports.

After an injury forced him to miss much of his high school career, this season was his first to start. Yes, he threw far too many interceptions, but folks everywhere are enamored with his upside, too.

Back in July, Yahoo.com’s Pete Thamel — he of the Tennessee bashing during the Greg Schiano debacle — wrote about the unheralded prospect:

But it’s safe to project Shrout, a 6-foot-3, 190-pound rising senior, as one of the biggest steals of the 2018 recruiting class. That was the consensus of coaches at the QB Collective, including one NFL coordinator who told Yahoo Sports that Shrout was by far the most polished prospect there. Shrout wowed all the coaches with his technical precision, polished footwork and smooth throwing motion. “I think of all the quarterbacks who were here, if I were an NFL general manager or quarterback coach, [he’d be] the guy who could step in on day one and fundamentally work within an NFL system,” said Sage Rosenfels, a longtime NFL backup who works as private quarterback coach in the Omaha area. “His drop was smooth. His fundamentals were very efficient and he throws a great ball.”

That’s a testament to the type of offense the Vols want to run under offensive coordinator Tyson Helton. It’s obvious this will be a pro-spread style that will utilize multiple receivers in West Coast route trees, feature running the football and downfield passing. It’s time to get back to real football, folks.

This is a vital piece to Tennessee’s puzzle, and the Vols really need him to pull the trigger, especially after Adrian Martinez flipped to Nebraska and UT cut Michael Penix loose to sign elsewhere. Shrout would be the only quarterback in Tennessee’s 2018 class, and he will be able to step right in and compete with Jarrett Guarantano, Quinten Dormady and Will McBride.

Shrout is an unfinished product, but he is the type of moldable piece for Helton. If he winds up choosing the Vols tomorrow, it will be a nice pickup. He has all the tools.

 

Don’t Let Tennessee’s Early Signing Day Fool You

 

Don’t look at the recruiting rankings right now.

No, I mean it. Don’t. Please.

A Tennessee recruiting class that once climbed as high as third nationally before coach Butch Jones’ fiefdom came crashing down, the lull in leadership broke down relationships and the administration botched the coaching search [though may have landed the hire] is currently in shambles.

If you’ve patronized the message boards lately or read Twitter, you’d think Tennessee’s class has collapsed around new head coach Jeremy Pruitt. That’s not so. At all. Local writer Mike Griffith even went as far today as to say Pruitt is “struggling.” That’s laughable.

It’s not a great look yet again for UT that it had favorite son and recruiting organizer extraordinaire Austin Thomas stole from LSU before a deal fell through. It was unfortunate for the Vols that Chris Weinke was set to leave Alabama with Pruitt to come to UT before his alma mater Florida State came calling.

But don’t look at this incomplete recruiting class and judge Pruitt’s body of work. It’s very much a work in progress. He couldn’t develop relationships before this early signing period where players can sign tomorrow, and he couldn’t help that some of the elite players who were once committed have a frontrunner mentality and dropped the Vols.

It’s been a perfect storm that’s caused the Vols to plummet out of the recruiting rankings.

When Tennessee was recruiting under Jones, the Vols enjoyed highly ranked classes yet failed to develop that talent. It’s not uncommon to look at UT players as seniors who didn’t progress much from their freshman seasons. We all know now Jones struggled to elevate players’ talent once they arrived on campus.

Did you ever think part of that was the type of player Jones recruited, though?

I’m not knocking any of the current kids on Tennessee’s roster, but it’s clear that Jones recruited to a certain system — a system he called “infallible” — and that system failed famously, especially once Joshua Dobbs left for Pittsburgh. When Pruitt came in [finally] to coach the Vols, he took one look at UT’s class and basically gave a metaphorical shrug and a “meh.”

Then, the culling ensued.

Yes, Tennessee absolutely would have loved to land 5-star offensive lineman Cade Mays, a Knoxville Catholic player whose father was a standout. But he decided to go in a different direction, no matter how much Pruitt and UT coach Phillip Fulmer tried to sway him otherwise. It’s going to hurt seeing him playing for Clemson or Georgia next year, but nothing Pruitt could have done would sway him.

Absolutely, the Vols were happy with 4-star quarterback and Cali prospect Adrian Martinez coming to Knoxville, even though he didn’t play at all last year and isn’t an ideal fit for the pro-style offense coordinator Tyson Helton wants to run. But when Scott Frost arrived at Nebraska and made Martinez a priority, he fell in love with that new system in Lincoln. Honestly, he’s a better fit for what they want to do, even though he would have been a heck of a quarterback at UT potentially.

The rest of the players were guys Pruitt just didn’t think fit the system. Florida quarterback Michael Penix will land at a quality program, but he is more of a dual-threat kid, and Tennessee didn’t prefer him. Better to be up front and honest with guys than have them take up a scholarship spot that can be used elsewhere, have them unhappy and quit. Who wants that?

Do I understand Pruitt cutting a guy loose like Jamarcus Chatman and then getting a commitment from Kingston Harris, a defensive lineman who struggled to find the field as a senior at prestigious IMG Academy? Nope. But I know he’s a big body with a bunch of potential, and if anybody knows the kind of players he needs to run the type of 3-4 defense Pruitt employed at Alabama, Florida State and Georgia that won championships, it’s the man who shaped those units.

Why are we grinding our teeth that Pruitt saw a Jones class and disassembled it? Last I checked, Pruitt is coaching in the College Football Playoffs; Jones is sitting at home after his team went 4-8. And Mays [as well as Jaycee Horn, who just committed to South Carolina] are guys who decommitted on Jones’ watch, long before Pruitt came into the picture.

The Vols already went after another quarterback — California commitment JT Shrout — who will choose between UT and the Golden Bears tomorrow. If you look at his senior season stats, you will cringe. He threw 27 touchdowns and 25 interceptions. Yikes. But he is 6’3″, a traditional dropback passer with pristine mechanics that have NFL scouts already excited, according to Yahoo.com’s Pete Thamel.

Tennessee will be watching instate offensive lineman Jerome Carvin, his teammate 4-star running back Jeremy Banks and Shrout, among others, tomorrow. If a couple of those guys pull the trigger, it could set the stage for a big finish for Pruitt and the Vols.

Pruitt had exactly one recruiting weekend to prepare for [remember, he was announced mere days before getting Alontae Taylor back on campus, and he recommitted]. With a week to prepare for that day, Pruitt went JUCO-heavy on the visits, and we’ll see if any of them pay off with pledges tomorrow. UT certainly needs immediate help, especially on both lines and in the secondary.

Pruitt’s staff believes it can get in on some big names after the early signing period. The nation’s second-ranked outside linebacker J.J. Petersen has had Alabama at the top of his list forever, but Pruitt is his lead recruiter with the Crimson Tide. He told SEC Country this week that UT now leads. If Pruitt can convince some of those guys he’s already built relationships with when he was with the Tide to follow him to Tennessee, the Vols could land a few.

Also, it remains to be seen who Pruitt will hire in his last three assistant spots. Will one of them be South Carolina wide receivers coach and elite recruiter Bryan McClendon, as rumored? Pruitt knows recruiting is the name of the game in the SEC, and he’ll get somebody who can be relentless on the trail. Whoever that is could bring with him targets, too.

And [hold your nose, Vols fans] if Alabama looks good in the playoffs and Pruitt’s defense shines, it will be good publicity for UT, and some positive vibes could come the way of Tennessee’s recruiting class still. There’s still a month-plus for Pruitt to build relationships once he gets on campus for good. That’s not a ton of time, but it is enough with some preexisting relationships to get some guys on campus and signed.

This class isn’t going to wind up a high-riser in the least, but the Vols could fill some needs, and if it gets in the top 20 with all the turmoil that’s transpired, it’ll be OK. Pruitt is going to build things his way. We don’t know if that’s a winning way because he’s never led a program, but he has won a lot of championships as an assistant.

So, tomorrow, when all the excitement is happening and Mays makes his choice to go somewhere other than Knoxville and the Vols wind up with some guys who weren’t even on the radar a week ago, don’t get down. This is only the beginning of the Pruitt era, and with what Jones left UT, it isn’t an overnight fix.

Pruitt is going to do it his way. And as he said in his press conference, Vols fans shouldn’t worry about the guys they don’t get but the ones they do.

Aight?

 

New Tennessee Football Coach Jeremy Pruitt Seems to Fit Just Fine

As new Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt stood in front of an orange-clad contingent to be introduced Thursday, he told an anecdote about starting his career as an elementary school P.E. teacher in Fort Payne, Alabama.

Pruitt joked that, from a stretch between 2001-04, he taught every kid in that community how to tie their shoes.

Through the past 15 years, Pruitt has experienced a meteoric rise to make it to the top of his own college football program, but his job in Knoxville won’t be too dissimilar to that first one long ago.

It may be more difficult, but Pruitt is going to be charged with teaching the Vols on campus and the ones coming how to win. For a woebegone program, that may sound a lot tougher than tying shoes, but the reason why it may not be for Pruitt is simple:

The man has won football games everywhere he’s ever been, and he’s surged to where he is because of what he’s done.

Yes, to say he “won the press conference” would be the biggest cliche imaginable. After all, they all do, don’t they? But, for Tennessee fans sick of hearing about life championships, five-star hearts and other canned comments from a coach as robotic as Butch Jones, Pruitt is a breath of fresh air.

It’s almost like you expect the man in the bent-billed cap to slip a fishing hook on the bill, slide in a dip, sit there and shoot the breeze with you about a little ‘ball. That’s exactly what he did on Thursday, and he connected with us all.

From the story about his Daddy slipping off his belt and whipping him when he was young and suggested how his dad’s high school team could have won to when he stopped what he was doing to thank his wife because he’d forgotten to do that the last time he spoke in public, Pruitt came off as genuine. It’s because he is. He’s one of us, no matter what color cap he wore growing up or how many “script A’s” he has in his wardrobe.

Growing up on the Tennessee-Alabama line, I’ve got just as many buddies who pull for the Crimson Tide as the Vols. They may be a little misguided, but it doesn’t make them bad people. They’re just a bunch of good ol’ boys like me who want to sit around and talk ball, fuss at each other about it and hold bragging rights. I’m on an e-mail thread with a bunch of them right now, and we argue all day, every day, mostly about UT and UA.

Pruitt would fit right in.

So, when he says: “I’m charging everybody associated with this university to get our hands out of our pockets, let’s roll our sleeves up and get ready to go out in the streets with everybody else in the SEC,” you find yourself believing it, wanting to do it, feeling that’s what it takes to get out there and work hard enough to make what you want to happen, happen.

Of course, for Pruitt and the Vols, that is winning championships. It may seem so far away, but Pruitt didn’t give any time limits on Thursday. There was no, “It’ll take seven years to build a program,” malarky. A man who has been a part of four national championships answered as clearly and honestly as he could when asked what it would take for UT to get back to winning championships and how to get there.

“You’re saying, ‘Can we get there?'” he said to Nathanael Rutherford of Rocky Top Insider, who asked the question. “I wouldn’t be here if I thought we couldn’t get there; I’ll tell you that right now.”

So, how does it happen? If you are a Tennessee fan and listened to Pruitt’s press conference, you know two things: No. 1, MOTHER OF THOR HE SOUNDS LIKE NICK SABAN. How many “aight’s” can you fit into a soundbite? Now, swallow hard and take a deep breath, maybe go wash the taste out of your mouth because No. 2 (and most important is) he works like Nick Saban, too. He learned under Saban in three defensive capacities, and he played for Gene Stallings. He also coached for Mark Richt and Jimbo Fisher. Phillip Fulmer, as Pruitt noted, is just down the hall.

That’s a lot of great minds around him for Pruitt to just sit down and talk ball. You know he has, and you know he will. It’s obvious Pruitt is driven to win, and having been around Saban — no matter what you say about him — there’s no way you can’t be around the greatest college coach of all time and not have some of it rub off.

Sure, that fell through with Derek Dooley, but Pruitt is a laser-focused recruiting machine, intense on the field and off it, and the coaches lining up to coach on his first staff at Tennessee and the top-shelf, elite players he’s recruited in his time as an assistant are clear indicators that this isn’t the same.

“Make no bones about it,” UT chancellor Beverly Davenport said, “he told me he wanted to win championships. And I told him, ‘Make no bones about it, Tennessee expects you to.'”

He expects championships, and that’s what he’s going to try to do at Alabama before he starts full-time in Knoxville. He noted that he’ll coach and recruit for UT until the dead period starts, head back to Tuscaloosa to coach the Tide in the playoffs and then come back to Knoxville after the College Football Playoffs are over.

“I work for the University of Tennessee, I’m all in for the University of Tennessee until the dead period,” he said. “We’re going to recruit, I’m going to work as the head football coach at the University of Tennessee, and we’re going to do what we can do to start going in the right direction.

“Now, I also have a commitment to the kids I sat in their home with their parents and recruited them to go to the University of Alabama. Coach Saban has been wonderful to me; I wouldn’t be here today without his help, so I’m going to go back when the dead period starts, and I’m going to coach those kids.”

In between Pruitt talking about his intensity, we got some glimmers of what he wants to do from a schematic standpoint. He didn’t talk much about it besides being balanced on offense, letting the run dictate the pass, and being aggressive on defense. He also wouldn’t commit to running a 3-4, only saying he’d play to the team’s and players’ strengths.

We all know he’ll run a 3-4 when he gets his players in, but Thursday wasn’t the day to talk about all that. Pruitt said his vision is for Tennessee to be “big, fast, dominating, aggressive, and relentless football team that nobody in the SEC wants to play.” Obviously, that wasn’t the case during the Jones era where players seemed to be made of chipped glass and missed games for the tiniest ailments. The strength-and-conditioning failures under the previous regime ultimately doomed it, and Pruitt seems to understand just how vital that aspect is to winning. Coming from Tuscaloosa where Scott Cochran has the Crimson Tide players looking like cyborgs, would you think otherwise?

We know Pruitt bled crimson his whole life, but he also has Tennessee roots, too. He played briefly at Middle Tennessee State. His father coached for Marion County High School for a span, and though he grew up on Sand Mountain, he mentioned running through the T, Smokey and the coaching tenures of Coach Robert Neyland, Coach Doug Dickey, Coach Johnny Majors and Coach Fulmer. None of that was rehearsed. When you grow up in a football family, you know football.

Pruitt knows football, and while he may have been dyed in the wool Alabama, Tennessee is now “his” program.

“My name will be on this program,” Pruitt said. “If my name’s on it, I’m all in. I’m going to be involved in everything.”

A good, ol’ Southern boy talking about the importance of his name? If that ain’t something we can get behind, what is?

The bottom line is Pruitt can’t win anything on Thursday. It’s crazy to think that he can win the biggest prize for Tennessee’s most hated rival while he’s Tennessee’s head football coach, but that’s the nature of the beast right now. Whether you want the Crimson Tide to win or not in the next month, it’s more “leadership reps” — check that — CHAMPIONSHIP reps for a man charged to lead the Vols out of the doldrums and back into the spotlight.

We can sit here and discuss what all needs to happen, who we need to get, what we have to do and everything that stands in our way of winning big again in the SEC, but that’s not Pruitt’s style. He’s going to get out there and get his hands dirty, go out into those streets and work for it. He’s going to sit down with Tennessee’s players who just endured the worst season in program history, and he’s going to get back to basics.

He’s gonna go tie some shoes.

“Instead of talking about what we want,” Pruitt said, “let’s figure out how to get there.”

Fulmer stood in front of the congregation at the beginning of the press conference talking about how he needed to find the “right person,” the perfect fit for Tennessee.

“My charge from the chancellor, my obligation to our alumni and our great fans and especially to our former and future players who have or will pour their hearts into the program was to go find the best coach to get our proud football program back to the level of its championship tradition,” he said.

That search looked past Pruitt’s crimson and into the core of what makes him a leader, a winner and a builder. He doesn’t need any cliched bricks. Pruitt uses real talk, and he’s backed it up with real results.

It’s UT’s hope that continues as he puts his own fingerprints on a once-proud program.

Reports: Tennessee Finalizing Deal with Alabama DC Jeremy Pruitt to be new Head Coach

After a coaching search that felt like it spanned generations, took years off lives, ended jobs, tarnished reputations, caused power struggles between a major university’s boosters and administrators — as well as power struggles between most orange-clad men and the wives angry that they’d become married to their F5 buttons — the Tennessee Volunteers finally maybe, probably, hopefully have their man.

We think.

Possibly.

According to multiple reports from ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, Chris Low and Brett McMurphy to GoVols247’s Patrick Brown to VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs to everyone else in the free world with a Twitter account and a source, the Vols will name Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt as head coach on Thursday.

Barring any snags.

Schlabach also reported this hiring likely means the end of any chances USC offensive coordinator Tee Martin returns home to Knoxville at this time.

It’s important to note the caveat that nothing is COMPLETELY finalized yet, considering the “snag” Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano encountered two Sundays ago, the “snag” that made Purdue coach Jeff Brohm’s name magically disappear and the “snag” that obliterated a verbal agreement for Mike Leach to come to UT.

If none of the snags occur that have basically turned this Tennessee search into a minefield over the course of three weeks, Pruitt will be the new head man in orange. He’s the culmination of a five-day search since Phillip Fulmer took over as athletic director following John Currie’s firing.

Fulmer dipped his toe in the water on Gary Patterson, Chris Petersen and Justin Fuente reportedly, but didn’t get much reception. Once that happened, his search mostly focused on three SEC defensive gurus and SMU offensive-minded head coach Chad Morris, the former Clemson offensive coordinator.

The Morris flirtation didn’t progress as far as the other three, and he took the Arkansas job on Wednesday. Fulmer, meanwhile, conducted multiple interviews with old friend, former Tennessee linebacker and Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker and Alabama DC Pruitt.

If the search ultimately yields Pruitt, it’s a win for the Vols when it looked like there was no way this search could finish with one. Without question, no matter how great it was that #VolTwitter, fans and students banded together to stop the Schiano hire, it helped perpetuate the idea of a difficult environment in Knoxville.

The toxicity continued as Currie went rogue following failed attempts to hire Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, perhaps Brohm and definitely N.C. State coach Dave Doeren. He reportedly took a former Kansas State booster’s plane to the West Coast to interview Leach, was ordered home by UT chancellor Beverly Davenport and fired on the spot last Friday morning.

Fulmer’s search began, and he took some big swings before settling on a trio of tough, defensive-minded coaches with SEC roots and strong recruiting resumes. Perhaps the strongest was Pruitt’s, who knocked his interviews out of the park and ended up the main focus.

Now, if his name actually somehow finds paper in the morning and this thing is official, the focus will be on the coaching staff and recruiting. Can Pruitt bring with him any of Alabama’s marquee commitments he was recruiting? Can he somehow convince Tosh Lupoi to join him in Knoxville rather than being the next in line to be ‘Bama’s defensive coordinator? If not, will the focus zero in on Georgia’s linebackers coach Kevin Sherrer?

Is there any truth to the rumors that Pruitt could bring with him old buddy Chip Lindsay to be Tennessee’s offensive coordinator after just one (successful) season as Gus Malzahn’s coordinator at Auburn? Will former Arkansas offensive coordinator Dan Enos get a look in Knoxville?

There is still a lot of intrigue remaining in all this, but it looks [at least right now] like Tennessee got its head man after a long, national embarrassment.

Finally.

Now, just don’t go screw it up, Vols.

Chaos’s Reward? The Return of Phillip Fulmer: Oh Captain, My Captain

 

More than nine years ago, an emotional Phillip Fulmer rode out of the Tennessee spotlight on the shoulders of his players after a career where he went 152-52. Though it had been a tumultuous final season, he exited with a win.

On Friday, Fulmer came back in on his proverbial white horse to be the UT athletic director and potential savior of a woebegone football program that has endured so much losing, embarrassment and dysfunction over the time since he was forced out that it seems like it was the program’s penance for letting him go.

All of that came to a head this week in what has played out like a daytime soap opera meets college football passion meets Game of Thrones.

In case you’ve been making moonshine in the mountains this week, here’s my quickest possible summary:

After an outpouring of indignation following the leaked announcement that John Currie, the Haslams and the rest of their cronies were going to force Greg Schiano down our throats as Tennessee’s new head coach, UT’s fan base revolted. By Sunday’s sundown, Tennessee rescinded the offer.

While that reaction was justified, the national media responded with a trailer-park frenzy of its own. The dominoes that scattered to the floor the remainder of the week amounted to warring, internal strife within the athletic department puppets and the Board of Trustees.

Long-time UT offensive assistant David Cutcliffe declined to leave Duke and try to help fix things. Then, Currie threw a bunch of money at Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy who spurned Tennessee for the second time to stay home and coach the Cowboys.

UT spoke to SMU coach Chad Morris, though an offer was never made, and the search turned its focus toward Purdue coach Jeff Brohm. Jimmy Hyams reported Brohm would be the next head coach, but news trickled out that the UT administration balked at Brohm’s buyout. Other media outlets said the Vols never offered. 

After the Brohm “did-he-or-didn’t-he” fiasco, N.C. State coach Dave Doeren was the focus and actually had an offer. Tennessee fans, by this time brimming with anger, went the irrational route and implored Doeren on Twitter that we didn’t want him. Doeren accepted a raise to stay in Raleigh. Then, under the veil of secrecy, Currie flew to the West Coast where he interviewed Washington State head coach Mike Leach without permission from the administration, his authority minimized by this time due to the Schiano fiasco. Currie was ordered home like a child by his scolding parents, was “suspended” Friday morning, and will be fired later after only a matter of semantics leaving the deal with Leach in the ether and Fulmer at the helm with a two-year deal as athletic director. 

Got all that insanity? Yes, all of that has happened in the past six days. But perhaps the only way to really cure the major ailments that afflict the Vols was to have a very public episode.

Of course, the national media has piled on like a pack of hungry wolves, with ESPN’s GameDay crew saying just this morning we are college football’s version of the Titanic. All but a few writers who understand the climate that had been bubbling for years such as SI.com’s Andy Staples, ESPN’s Peter Burns and a limited few others, have sharpened pitchforks all week. Many of the names you normally read were quick to judge and take sides. Now, if you’re like me, those will now become names you used to normally read.

None of that matters, though. Not anymore.

The only thing that matters to us is that we can have a football program of which we can be proud. The quickest way to cease being a laughingstock off the field is not to be one on it. And the only way not to be one on it is to get a unifying force to lead this athletic department; somebody who really, truly cares about fixing football the way Alabama fixed football 11 years ago.

When Nick Saban came to Tuscaloosa, the program got better, the money started rolling in so the athletic department got better, and therefore, the university got better. Tuscaloosa isn’t only an NFL factory; it’s also printing money like no other.

Well, that’s not exactly true. Tennessee brings in plenty of money, too. Yet the administration still continues to make bumbling, middling hires that will leave us in the wilderness we entered when we fired Fulmer so long ago.

Now, thankfully, finally, Fulmer is back. He never really left, but his home in Maryville may have well been on the moon for all the say he’s had in the program over the past decade. Any time he was interviewed, you could see the hurt on his face over what we’d become. All he ever asked for was an opportunity to fix it.

That opportunity is now here.

You think Fulmer is just going to ride in here on his stallion and throw a no-name coach out there? He may have to, but he’s going to begin by fishing in deep waters. Depending on the nibbles he gets, GoVols247’s Wes Rucker said a VFL duo of Kevin Steele and Tee Martin is a possibility to return to Knoxville and help Fulmer right these wrongs. Are they the answers? At this point, who knows? But what we can and should all get behind is that there’s a man in the captain’s seat who cares about Tennessee now as much, if not more, than you and me. That should thrill us all.

This nation-wide coaching search isn’t over, but the national nightmare is. The appointment of Fulmer as athletic director effectively minimizes the involvement of the corrupt Haslams, who’d ruled Tennessee and treated it as their own personal fiefdom over the past several decades. Considering Daddy Jim Haslam was instrumental in Fulmer’s ousting, it’s safe to say the two aren’t chummy.

Friday’s decision to turn the athletic department over to Fulmer was a proverbial passing of the torch from the Haslams’ money to other donors. Now, most importantly, somebody who actually knows and cares about football will be making the football decisions.

Fulmer spoke Friday about there being a time when our football team could compete with anybody anywhere and he’s charged with making that happen again. Though it won’t be an overnight fix, the most important thing for UT fans to remember that he said is this:

“Our first job is turning around our football program,” Fulmer said. “Our football teams in recent years have struggled for a variety of reasons, but through it all we have been supported by the most passionate fan base in the country. These great fans deserve teams that make them proud.”

“It will not be easy, and it will take some time, but we will succeed. We first must find us a coach who wants to be at Tennessee, who appreciates the unique opportunity that we have to offer at this very special place at this historical time and who is driven to win at the highest level of college football; the kind of head coach who will honor our University’s values, will be proud to represent our state and be a role model for our student-athletes.

When Fulmer says it, you know it isn’t just lip service or coachspeak. You know he means it, and he has the opportunity to right the wrongs of the past decade, wrongs that started with some recruiting and hiring missteps that came under his own watch.

Fulmer didn’t spend any of his time at the podium on Friday gloating. He didn’t spend any of it talking about how he never should have been fired in the first place or even mentioning that Currie was a Mike Hamilton disciple and that it probably gave him some gratification for this entire situation to come full-circle and for him to replace the obviously overmatched Currie after only eight months on the job. Fulmer spoke of a utopian future where, perhaps, Tennessee could compete at a national level again. He understands that isn’t in the near future, but the only way to fix everything is to start on the inside and work out.

Sometimes, in order to look ahead, you have to learn from your past. Fulmer addressed that, too.

“I hope to be a stabilizing and unifying force through this, just because we do have some grey hair and lots of experience at this place, and sometimes when you’re younger, you screwed it up so bad that you figured it out later. You don’t make the same mistakes again.”

Those mistakes Fulmer made were only the tip of the iceberg that became glacier. They snowballed from the Lane Kiffin year of tearing down traditions, bending NCAA rules and leaving to the failed tenures of Derek Dooley and Butch Jones — two of the worst program fits of any hires in SEC history — to Dave Hart’s decisions to do away with the Lady Vols nickname to bumbling chancellors and university presidential leadership to Hart’s own ouster and the grueling power struggles that led to Currie being hired as the Haslams’ Yes Man at AD, to this year’s 4-8 season that was the worst in school history, to Jones’ way-too-late firing, to this past, forgettable week.

Tennessee is an also-ran and an afterthought. On a day when conference championships are being played, the Vols are sitting at home while the administration has been bursting apart at the seams.

But Fulmer — no matter how he got in the seat — is a glimmer of hope. You can talk all you want about basement-dealings, back-stabbings and cloak-and-dagger decisions, but the bottom line is we’ve tried all those other things. We’ve gone every direction possible after Fulmer, and we never could recapture what Fulmer gave us.

Now, Fulmer is back, and his legacy, in part, depends on what he can do to build us back up to what we once were. Can we emerge from our own considerable shadow to have a program of substance ever again? Neyland Stadium sits empty on the edge of the river, just waiting to be filled with happiness once again, and the last man who ever brought that inside her walls now sits at the stern of the athletic department.

Papa’s home. The Battle Captain is back. So, let’s go find us a coach and have fun winning some championships, Vols.

A Unified Vols Voice of Reason

 

Today will go down in college football history, and the narrative will not be kind to Tennessee fans following a social-media frenzy that included state legislators, prominent boosters, former players and some media members who demanded the university not hire Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano as UT’s next head coach.

Don’t let that deter what happened. People don’t always view doing the right thing in the best way. It still doesn’t make it less right.

Look, it’s important that we get this out of the way up front:  I sincerely hope that Schiano didn’t know anything about incarcerated serial-rapist Jerry Sandusky during his time as a Penn State assistant. But the bottom line is that Schiano’s name — for better or worse — was associated with the allegations. By now, you’ve read about the details.

I hope Schiano is a good man, a good father, a good leader of men, though his time in the NFL and myriad stories about different situations don’t really back up the latter. That doesn’t mean he’s a molestation enabler. Maybe he didn’t know anything at all, ever. Maybe he did.

There’s a gray area in there Tennessee administrators should not have been comfortable with, and that gray area is why the uproar ensued Sunday.

I believe Sunday’s revolt happened for the right reasons. Many national media members chose to run with the narrative that Tennessee fans were unhappy with Schiano’s football coaching acumen, and that’s the reason for the “faux outrage.” Are there some in that category? Absolutely. But the vast majority rebelled against the hire because of morality issues they simply couldn’t reconcile.

As a Tennessee fan, as a writer who covers the Vols, as a graduate of the school, as a father, as a man who tries to live with integrity, I cannot justify my football program operating in the Wilderness of Maybe. I’d rather lose for the next 10 years with somebody I can rally behind rather than have to worry about whether the person leading my team knew about one of the most heinous episodes in the history of sports and did nothing about it.

When there is literally an endless pool of candidates out there, to even wade into that deep end on the heels of a Title IX lawsuit and in the wake of all the Butch Jones atrocities that pale in comparison to anything associated with Penn State, it’s a tone-deaf decision for athletic director John Currie to go this route.

That’s why Vols fans everywhere had to unite and cry out for this to be rescinded. If it winds up costing Tennessee buyout money, so be it. It should come from Currie’s paycheck first and mega-booster Jim Haslam’s pocket second. If it winds up costing Tennessee wins, well, it is still the right decision. If it winds up costing Tennessee face in the public eye, this administration and athletic department have been public relations debacles for years; why should this be any different?

Could Sunday’s unprecedented outcry make this a more difficult hire for Tennessee now that Schiano is off the table? Absolutely it could. But if that’s the case, blame Currie; don’t blame a fan base that has had enough of poor on-the-field decisions, even poorer off-the-field decisions and didn’t want to pin its hopes of a program teetering on the brink of extinction on someone you’d be afraid to send your son to play for.

Currie’s smug arrogance in all of this and his refusal to understand the pulse of his fans, former players, fellow administrators and his state are grounds for dismissal in their own rights. But if Tennessee chooses to stay with somebody who may be a mouthpiece for the same decision-maker failures who have led us to this current state of a laughingstock program, at the very least Sunday could serve as a wake-up call.

You can continue to force-feed us with third-rate coaches and a program that continually stoops to all-time lows, but you can’t make us swallow our pride while you’re doing it. We will buy our tickets and fill your stadium, but we won’t compromise our beliefs to do it. And if we have to sacrifice a few puppets like Currie along the way, so be it.

The bottom line is that a bunch of the same national media members criticizing us for taking a stand for reasons they can’t back with facts but still fit into 280-character hot takes would have been criticizing the hire as a bad one had we stayed quiet. It’s only a matter of whether we want to read stories about how we blocked a potentially morally reprehensible hire or how we hired somebody who may be morally reprehensible.

The narrative only slightly changed.

If you don’t think Nick Saban would use Schiano’s possible checkered resume against the Vols the first chance he got in a prospect’s living room, you’re insane. It’s a narrow-minded hire that checks plenty of boxes but leaves many of the moral ones blank.

That we are even having this conversation is the clearest picture of Currie’s ineptitude and this administration’s continuing lack of grasp on the program it’s consistently running into the ground.

So, where do we go from here? That’s a question I cannot answer. That we were ever “here” in the first place speaks to the abject failure that is Tennessee’s athletic director, Board of Trustees and decision-makers. Why would we have any belief that it’s going to get better? They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

But those trumpeting the, “Tennessee will never be able to hire anybody now!” narrative is overlooking the fact that, Penn State stuff aside, Schiano was at best a mediocre coach and a coordinator who left the NFL after one year due to what was essentially a player mutiny. It isn’t like we just severed ties with somebody who could coach like Knute Rockne or inspire millions like Mr. Rogers.

Tennessee’s 12-day, one-man-led search wound up with Schiano, a man with too much baggage to sell a fan base trying to move beyond the failures of the past. There are a lot of questions surrounding Schiano, and this is a group of followers sick of having to answer questions, sick of having to justify second-rate hires and sick of supporting a bunch of administrators more worried about saving a dollar than saving face.

UT may wind up failing at this coaching search the same way it has the past three times, but exactly none of that will be because of what happened Sunday. Today was a victory worth fighting and worth winning.

We may not ever be able to brag about our football program, Vols fans. But, today, we should be proud of each other.

LSU 30, Tennessee 10: Dreaming of Different Days

Hey, now! That’s the kind of free-spirited failure we can get behind!

Tennessee came out against LSU on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium with a different attitude, a different mindset and looked for a half like a much different football team.

Then, the storms came and washed away all those good vibes that began with the second half-opening kickoff lost in the blustering wind and buckets of rain. A three-and-out series that went backward and ended against the Vols’ own goal line, a flipped field and Tigers touchdown later, it was 23-10.

After all that — unfortunately for Tennessee’s spirited fans rejuvenated from Butch Jones’ firing last Sunday — it wasn’t a different team in orange. It was the same, ol’ Vols.

Butch is gone, but his legacy lives on!

They couldn’t pass the ball consistently, they couldn’t block anybody with the shadow of an offensive line, they couldn’t get key stops, they couldn’t go an entire series without a crippling penalty, and they couldn’t catch a kick.

For every big play like the Marquez Calloway drive to end the first half and the 60-yard Jeff George grab later, there were so many eye-covering blunders that kept the Vols from being a true threat at all in the second half. The stink of the Jones era eventually smothered the good vibes, manifesting itself with UT’s lack of halftime adjustments (for the, oh, 10th time in 10 games this season) and with Larry Scott’s miffed play calling.

Jarrett Guarantano may be the quarterback of the future in Knoxville, but he’s not the answer for the present. He may be nicknamed “The Guarantee,” but the only thing assured this year is that Tennessee is going to lose. You can pretty much set your watch by that, and it’s been a skeleton crew of Vols that’s hard to watch, just to be honest.

So many miscues and so few difference-makers led to loss No. 7 on the season. Thank God that Jones is gone, and this team looked better in the first half than it has in a long time, but Tennessee now can just beg 2017 to go away.

There will be no bowl game, just when we thought we’d moved past those days in this program. There are so many roster questions and holes that it’s hard to hold much optimism without a complete culture change. The only thing that matters is next week’s Pride Game, which means so much more than just beating Vanderbilt; the Vols will try to keep from being the only team in school history to lose eight regular-season games.

At this point, it may seem small; but it’s all that’s left.

The strength-and-conditioning failures from Jones’ tenure will be ghouls that haunt this program for at least a year and maybe more. As much as we hated and denied the anonymous NFL scout who told SEC Country’s Mike Griffith that this was a “soft” team before the season started, he could not have been more right. When you put those two factors together, you’ve got a team that gets hurt too much, injured far too much, and gets pushed around on the field no matter who’s in the lineup.

Believe it or not, the Tennessee D played well for much of the night against a plodding-but-efficient LSU offense. Nigel Warrior, Daniel Bituli and Co. were all over the field. They made plays they haven’t made for much of the season and played with a different level of excitement, happy perhaps to be shed of their head coach.

It was the closest thing to a Five-Star Heart performance that we’ve seen all year. And it was still nowhere near enough to finish anywhere near respectfully on the scoreboard. This team needs much more separation from this forgettable season than five days.

I found myself watching the clock Saturday night, just wanting the game to end. I’ll do the same next week wanting the season to follow suit. Just go away, let us be, let us try to do this thing over yet again. Because there isn’t anything left to play for.

So, we look toward the future. It’s hard to know what we’ll find there. What kind of identity will this team take under a new coach? How many of the recruits will be around to see that happen? Will mystery, MIA guys like Marcus Tatum, Jauan Jennings, Drew Richmond, Quinten Dormady and others be a part of the program? Can we actually see players get stronger, develop and improve? Is the quarterback of the future even on this year’s roster?

Unfortunately for Tennessee fans, we’re left with questions. But we can at least take solace that unanswered questions are always, unequivocally better than the wrong answer, and Jones is the wrong answer. We see that every game with this disjointed, undisciplined team that plays without any direction whatsoever. We don’t know what we’ve got on the roster because the offensive scheme is so poor and the gaps on defense are so great that it’s impossible to see what 2018 may hold.

All we know is it’s going to be different than this, and thank God for that. We have to take “different” because even though we don’t know if it’s going to be better, it’s simply hard for any of us to believe that it can be worse than what we saw Saturday night, what we’ve seen all year.

Yes, it was so much better against the Tigers than it has been. And it was still a 30-10 loss. Think about that, Vols fans. We can’t even be happy about moral victories anymore; we’re stuck with finding happiness in maybes. We’re forced to live in the past and the future because the present is rife with failure.

You wonder why there was so little talk about Tennessee-LSU this week in Knoxville. It’s because nobody wanted it to come, and, once it got here, even the excitement came and went like a firework, bright and sparkly before quickly disappearing. Like has been the case for much of the past 15 years, we have to take our joy in everything about the football program but the actual football.

So, leave us alone. Thank God that’s over, right? Now, let us get back to tracking planes and following leads for every Joe Fan the Source Man who knows Jon Gruden’s wife’s brother-in-law’s cousin’s mother. Let us stake out airports and wear out our F5 buttons and look for any glimmer of joy in the hope that something good is going to come our way; that something can change this infinite sadness; that different days are nigh.

Hope is what we do best. It’s all we have.