Category Archives: Football

I don’t know what you think the lowest moment of the last ten years is; maybe it’s the loss to Kentucky in 2011, maybe getting blown out by Georgia last year, or maybe it’s just everything from the South Carolina game in 2016 onward. But I’m a firm believer that the scariest moment was the hours between John Currie’s dismissal and Phillip Fulmer’s hire on December 1.

The book on Fulmer as athletic director will be written over the next few years; there are no guarantees. But in that moment, the Vols seemed more vulnerable than they’d been in my entire lifetime. The short-term was already sacrificed with the Schiano fiasco, but the long-term was on the table with no athletic director, no guarantees the powers that be would bring in the right one, and no promising candidates who would want to walk into that kind of situation as Tennessee’s next head coach.

And at some point in those hours on December 1, I remember thinking, “…and we can’t block anyone next year anyway.”

10 Questions for 2018 #4: The Offensive Line

Consider how much better things have gotten since then, not only with Fulmer and (hopefully) Pruitt, but the line. That this isn’t question number one is a very good sign.

Jeremy Pruitt inherited a line including Drew Richmond, Trey Smith, Marcus Tatum, Ryan Johnson, Riley Locklear, and redshirt freshman K’Rojhn Calbert. Devante Brooks had just been converted from tight end. That’s seven scholarship players. Jack Jones was out, Venzell Boulware transferred, and Chance Hall and Nathan Niehaus seemed unlikely to return. Even before we assumed we wouldn’t get Cade Mays, this was big trouble. When we did a first draft 2018 depth chart in the midst of the coaching search, we had to leave center blank.

But Jeremy Pruitt did three critical things to shore up the line: signed four-star Jerome Carvin, picked up junior college transfer Jahmir Johnson, and landed Alabama transfer Brandon Kennedy.

The Vols still didn’t get Mays, then had several months of waiting to hear Trey Smith could go again. I’m still not sure when or at what percentage we’ll see Chance Hall. But there’s at least some optimism available now when it was impossible to find back in December.

The Vols could start a five-star and three four-stars in this group. Again, leaning heavily on recruiting rankings and hoping this staff flips the switch on a player like Drew Richmond is what we’re all guilty of with a first-year coach. But there’s now hope the Vols could not only fill out the line, but it could be an asset.

Last season Tennessee was 114th nationally in sacks allowed, 121st in TFLs allowed, and 115th in yards per carry. The sacks number (2.92 per game) was only the worst since 2014 (3.31) when Justin Worley was ultimately lost for the year. The Vols also allowed 3.15 per game in the 2010 “we can’t play Tyler Bray because he might die back there” season with freshmen everywhere on the line. Sacks allowed have varied wildly in this decade between styles of play and freshmen being forced to step in. That shouldn’t have to be the case this season; guys like Ollie Lane and Taylor Antonutti will be available, but can rightfully wait before they’re asked to be a first-team option if the Vols stay relatively healthy.

The tackles for loss were a concern throughout Butch Jones’ tenure; Southern Cal struggled a bit in that department last season as well, but were 11th nationally in that stat in 2016. Hopefully the system and the play-calling will help there. As for running the football, 3.41 yards per carry last season was the program’s worst number since 2011 (2.76). But those two totals, along with Ole Miss’s 3.36 ypc in 2011, are the worst three rushing performances in the SEC this decade. There’s bad, and then there’s a kind of historically bad you simply cannot afford to be in this league.

So yes, there’s lots of room to grow. But that growth now has names and faces and even backups, and the majority of the starters should at least carry the recruiting rankings Pruitt’s staff will want to become the norm. The Vols don’t have to start freshmen, and the previous staff did at least recruit the position as opposed to what they were left by Derek Dooley. Last season was as bad as it’s been on the line, and things looked especially perilous during the transition. But looking forward, there’s more reason for optimism, especially with offensive line coach Will Friend having an influence on not just this unit but the offense as a whole. That this line has a better prognosis than at least a couple we’ve inherited this decade is a good sign. If they stay healthy, they might even become a strength.

10 Questions for 2018

10. Which backups on the defensive line will be starters in 2019?

09. Can special teams make the difference in a coach’s first year?

08. What do we know about Tyson Helton’s offense from his time at USC?

07. Who’s the third/fourth wide receiver in an offense that will actually throw them the ball?

06. What about team chemistry with a first-time coach and a hodgepodge of players?

05. How much ground can the Vols gain in year one on the non-UGA SEC East?

 

 

Football is near.

And it won’t be long until we’re gearing ourselves up for the Vols to usher in the Jeremy Pruitt era.

We all know 2018 likely isn’t going to be a pretty sight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk ourselves into the Vols being much-improved under the former Alabama defensive coordinator. After all, Butch Jones is gone.

You just can’t help this time of year to be a tiny bit optimistic, even if logic (and recent history) suggests this is going to be yet another rebuilding campaign in Knoxville. Pruitt wants to win now, and he definitely isn’t used to losing after successful tenures in Tuscaloosa, Tallahassee and Athens, Georgia.

He’s outfitted UT’s roster with more size, and an infusion of collegiate talent. And he’s won some recruiting battles for guys who must be able to come right in and make an impact.

But what about the dudes already on the team? Who needs to make a major step forward in 2018 for the Vols to rise above the 4-8 doldrums of a historically horrible season where it looked like the team quit on former coach Butch Jones and his staff?

So far, our list has gone a little like this:

Offense: 5. Jauan Jennings 4. Ryan Johnson 3. Ty Chandler 2. Drew Richmond

Defense: 5. Jonathan Kongbo 4. Theo Jackson 3. Darrell Taylor 2. Baylen Buchanan

Who are the top two, then?

OFFENSE

No. 1 JARRETT GUARANTANO, RS SOPHOMORE QUARTERBACK

Say what you want to about graduate transfer Keller Chryst, and he may actually win the starting quarterback gig. But I’m not sure that’s the best thing for the Vols.

What would be an ideal situation is for the former dynamic, highly rated high school prospect from New Jersey to grow into his full potential and surge into stardom with three years left to play. Not only would that help the Vols ease into the Jeremy Pruitt era with a dependable signal-caller, it would allow guys like true freshman J.T. Shrout and recruit Brian Maurer to develop.

You have to think if Guarantano doesn’t beat out Chryst, his time at Tennessee would be nearing an end. It’s tough to speculate on something like that, sure, but I’m not sure if he can’t beat out a former backup at Stanford in year 3 of his time at UT if he’ll ever be the player the Vols thought they were getting when they recruited him.

Guarantano is not a run-first guy the way Joshua Dobbs was. He has a cannon for an arm and though he can make all the throws, he struggled with his anticipation and throwing guys open as a second-year freshman a year ago. His “internal clock” was broken, too. He never felt the pressure the way you want your quarterback to, and too many times, plays broke down because he didn’t get rid of the ball.

This spring, you would have loved to see him separate himself and earn a little bit of a head start with Chryst not on campus. He didn’t do that, and Guarantano really isn’t an ideal fit for new offensive coordinator Tyson Helton’s system. But that doesn’t mean he’ll fail. He’s got a lot of talent and can make all the plays. He can even run a little.

The Vols need for Guarantano to be a fiery leader, a gamer who grinds out plays and can make the spectacular ones occasionally. Helton has developed a lot of quarterbacks who’ve posted big-time collegiate numbers, and while nobody expects Guarantano to be a breakout star, the Vols need for him to be a steady force.

This Tennessee team can’t win football games with a “game manager.” I’m afraid that’s all Chryst would be with his accuracy issues and the lack of proof that he can ignite a downfield attack. Guarantano has that field-stretching arm. He has that ability. He has that swagger.

But can he put everything together?

Right now, he’s a leftover icon from an era gone wrong on Rocky Top. He was the Chosen One to play quarterback for the future of the Vols, but Butch Jones chose him. So, Guarantano doesn’t have the fan base’s heart, and he certainly doesn’t have the stats or the resme for us to believe in him.

He has to prove that he’s a good player and not just another recruiting miscue by a staff that failed to develop player after player after player.

DEFENSE

No. 1 KYLE PHILLIPS, SENIOR DEFENSIVE LINEMAN

For a while, I thought about putting Darrin Kirkland Jr. on this list. After all, he nearly left the Vols, and if he could return to his form as a true freshman when he was literally all over the field making plays, he would be a major boost to UT’s team.

Then I remembered: It doesn’t matter if Kirkland is a beast or not because the Vols’ linebacking corps should be one of the few positions on the team that has talent stockpiled. Between him, Daniel Bituli, Kongbo, Taylor, Will Ignont, Quart’e Sapp, JJ Peterson, Jordan Allen, Deandre Johnson, Austin Smith, Shanon Reid, Dillon Bates and others, surely the Vols can find a serviceable — if not dynamic — foursome. Yes, Kirkland is important, but I think the players I’ve put on the list are more important.

So, I’m going to go with a defensive lineman here.

Though Shy Tuttle probably should have been on here somewhere (I’m still not convinced Kongbo is a factor…) the top spot goes to Phillips. Remember when he destroyed the U.S. Army All-American Game, committed to Tennessee over LSU, and we all thought we were in for four years where he was going to terrorize SEC quarterbacks?

That seems like so long ago.

As a freshman, he started at defensive end, lacked explosion, moved inside to his chagrin but made some plays and then his season ended prematurely with injury. Injuries, inconsistency and mismanagement hindered him as a sophomore, and he was just so-so last year. Now, this offseason, he’s added a few pounds and is up to 273 pounds. He is expected to play inside some and can also play at that weight on the outside, too.

But he’s going to play a big role. Pruitt thought enough of him that Phillips represented Tennessee at SEC Media Days, not Tuttle. He’s a smart kid, a good kid and he hasn’t enjoyed the kind of career he expected. Now, this year, he hopes to build off a really good spring and finish his career in Knoxville with a flurry.

The Vols need dependable, rugged players on the defensive front who can stay in their slots, not get blown off the ball, and, most importantly, stop the run. That’s something this team hasn’t done in years. Now, if Tuttle can have a solid final year and a guy like Phillips can be a cog in the front, it can free up the ‘backers to make plays.

Is this group going to get a lot of sacks? That’s doubtful. But the Vols absolutely must get pressure on quarterbacks and help out what is expected to be a young and inexperienced secondary. When you look at that defensive line, there are some formerly heavily recruited players who’ve had mediocre careers who are really looking for something in their swan song.

Phillips is the perfect embodiment of that. He needs a big year if he’s going to get any NFL teams to give him a second look. The Vols need him to be a factor if they’re going to be any good at all this season.

So, here he sits, at the top of the list. It’s now or never for Phillips and a lot of his Jones-recruited teammates who suffered through the worst season in the history of the program a year ago.

Jesse Simonton’s piece at VolQuest this week produced a familiar answer to a fun late-July question. What’s Tennessee’s most important game?

It’s Florida. It’s almost always Florida.

There are quotes Tennessee fans will like in Jesse’s piece, offering some behind-the-scenes insight on how Jeremy Pruitt’s staff seems to understand the importance of Vols/Gators around here. And while Florida has been a consistent answer to that question since the divisional format began in 1992, why the game is so important has shifted over the years from Tennessee’s perspective.

It’s easier to think of seasons when Florida didn’t feel like the most important game in late-July. It’s also fun to look at the impact of the Florida game at the end of each year. Here are a few thoughts on the pre-and-post-season answers to Tennessee’s most important game since the Vols and Gators have been together in the SEC East:

1992-95: The Bama Streak

Even though the Vols and Crimson Tide aren’t in the same division, Alabama still felt like the most important game of the year until the Vols broke what became a 10-year streak. It took that, in 1995, to really turn the attention of Tennessee fans fully toward Gainesville, where by then Florida had picked up a three-year run of its own over Tennessee. Looking back, only the first of these years in 1992 wasn’t also defined by what the Vols did against Alabama in the end. Phillip Fulmer’s takeover made the Florida game the most meaningful at the end of the ’92 season, both the best memory from that year and the one that most assisted Fulmer in becoming Tennessee’s next head coach. 1993’s longest-lasting memory is the tie against the Crimson Tide, a near-miss at the goal line the longest from 1994, and that jubilant night in Birmingham still sings 23 years later from 1995.

1996-2001: Tennessee/Florida as a National Rivalry

With the exception of a rebuild in 2000, in every one of these years you knew there were national championship implications on the line when Tennessee and Florida met. And only once, when the Vols lost to Florida in 1997 but still made the SEC Championship Game, did the outcome fail to define Tennessee’s season. These six match-ups were #2 vs #4, #2 vs #4, #2 vs #6, #2 vs #4, #6 vs #11 in 2000, then #2 vs #5. That’s all you need to know.

2002-03: A Brief Intermission for Miami

Having drained The Swamp and watched Steve Spurrier leave for the NFL, the Vols were free to dream a little bigger heading into the 2002 season. The defending champs from Miami would visit Neyland Stadium that November, and with the Vols in the preseason top five it felt like the biggest bulls-eye coming in. Of course, the 2002 season didn’t go as planned, starting with a rainy day against Florida that ended up being the longest-lasting memory from that year. The following season Florida was back in its rightful place atop the most important list at the start of the year, but a surprise upset in the return match with the Hurricanes (and a three-way tie in the SEC East) made the win at Miami the season’s most memorable.

2004-09: Change on the Horizon

With Ron Zook at Florida, Georgia took advantage. Florida won the BCS title in 2006, but it was their only SEC East crown from 2001-07. Tennessee and Georgia split the other six, making the Dawgs the most important game on the front end in 2004 and 2005, plus Georgia’s preseason #1 turn in 2008. It lived up to that standard in 2004, as the Vols stunned #3 Georgia in Athens en route to the division crown. And while it may not have felt like the most important game coming in, wins over Georgia in 2007 and 2009 were the best memories from those years. During this span the Vols also had critical early-season non-conference games that mattered a great deal in perception: California in 2006, and UCLA for Lane Kiffin in 2009.

2010-17: You’re not really back until you…

Beat Florida. During the Derek Dooley and Butch Jones tenures, only once was Florida not the most important game of the year coming in: 2013, in Jones’ first year, with Vanderbilt on the rise under James Franklin and the Vols having lost to Kentucky in 2011 and Vanderbilt in 2012. After the Dooley era, beating the Gators felt like too big of an ask for Jones in year one, the most sober we’ve been as a fan base (and maybe even more sober than we are right now). I’d listen to an argument for 2015, that more people were invested in that Oklahoma game in Neyland than Florida in The Swamp coming into the year, but I’m not sure I’m buying it. For Dooley, only in the end was the Florida game truly the most important: his first team turned it over to Tyler Bray at South Carolina and seemed to turn a corner; his second team threw all that right in the fire at Kentucky, which should never ever be your most impactful game of the year. Butch Jones got more positive out of beating South Carolina in 2013 than losing to Vanderbilt, but Florida has been the most painful memory in each of the last four years. Three losses that absolutely should not have been, and one spectacular win that couldn’t stand the test of time by season’s end.

By my count, Florida has felt like the most important game coming into the year in 15 of the last 22 seasons since the Vols broke the Bama streak. And it has been the game with the longest-lasting impact on Tennessee’s year 11 times in those 22 years, including five of the last six. It’s a far cry from what we saw in the late 90’s, but the stakes still feel quite real. They’re all important for Jeremy Pruitt, including West Virginia. But the answer is almost always Florida. It’s Pruitt’s job to raise those stakes even higher.

 

Football is near.

And it won’t be long until we’re gearing ourselves up for the Vols to usher in the Jeremy Pruitt era.

We all know 2018 likely isn’t going to be a pretty sight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk ourselves into the Vols being much-improved under the former Alabama defensive coordinator. After all, Butch Jones is gone.

You just can’t help this time of year to be a tiny bit optimistic, even if logic (and recent history) suggests this is going to be yet another rebuilding campaign in Knoxville. Pruitt wants to win now, and he definitely isn’t used to losing after successful tenures in Tuscaloosa, Tallahassee and Athens, Georgia.

He’s outfitted UT’s roster with more size, and an infusion of collegiate talent. And he’s won some recruiting battles for guys who must be able to come right in and make an impact.

But what about the dudes already on the team? Who needs to make a major step forward in 2018 for the Vols to rise above the 4-8 doldrums of a historically horrible season where it looked like the team quit on former coach Butch Jones and his staff?

OFFENSE

Drew Richmond, Junior Offensive Tackle

Tonight, we take a look at a couple of developmental disasters who have ability, but do they have the make-up, the responsiveness and the time to turn things around?

Perhaps the most important non-quarterback on Tennessee’s football team this fall is going to be former high 4-star offensive tackle Drew Richmond, a national signing day victory over Ole Miss when he flipped from the Rebels and gave coach Butch Jones one of his biggest pledges, both from a talent perspective and from a perception perspective.

After redshirting his freshman season, though and starting at the all-important left tackle spot in 2016, last season was a wash. Rather than improve on an up-and-down year thrust into the starting lineup, Richmond instead missed five games and played terribly at times when he was on the field. His performance was a microcosm of the team itself as he took a gigantic step backward and was even labeled a bust by some.

How bad was he last year? According to Pro Football Focus, he graded out third-worst on UT’s offense, per an article from GoVols247’s Patrick Brown. Only Devante Brooks and Marcus Tatum were worse. He can’t do anything about that now, and with a fairly clear path to start yet again, Richmond told Brown this spring that he has to look ahead.

“That’s just in the past,” Richmond said. “I can’t worry about that. I’m just focused right now on the growth of myself and the team. I’m just focused on this year. That’s all I can be worried about.”

There is no fairy dust for new coach Jeremy Pruitt’s staff, but as good as Walt Wells was on the recruiting trail for UT a year ago, his players didn’t respond on the offensive line. This spring showed some fair glimmers for the O-line under new coach Will Friend, and Richmond needs to build off some good performances and let it translate onto the field when it counts.

The Vols need for him to, too.

Let’s just say for instance that Trey Smith knocks off the rust and is the first-team All-SEC performer he was picked to be this preseason. Then, if Richmond responds and realizes three-quarters of his potential and turns into, say, a Dallas Thomas-type player this year, that gives UT two good-to-great linemen. With the prospects they have on the interior of the line, the Vols can find a serviceable duo there, which only leaves the right tackle spot as a place where guys like Jahmir Johnson, Tatum, Chance Hall and others can battle it out.

It’s not an ideal scenario, but it would be hard for UT to be worse along the front than it was a season ago. Under a new regime, it’s a fresh start for Richmond. With Smith, Ryan Johnson, Riley Locklear and Jerome Carvin in heated battles at guard and Alabama transfer Brandon Kennedy expected to lock down the center spot, that isn’t a bad start for UT up front.

Richmond turning into a solid player would be absolutely massive for the Vols. Is it possible he simply isn’t that good? Of course it is. He was embarrassingly awful at times last year, after all. But I refuse to give up on him just yet.

DEFENSE

Baylen Buchanan, Junior Cornerback

I basically could just take everything I wrote for Richmond, copy it, and paste it here. While they play completely different positions, the similarities between Richmond’s and Baylen Buchanan’s development [or lack thereof] are striking. It underscores just how awful the Jones coaching staff was when it came to developing players.

Again, Buchanan was a bit of a late bloomer in the recruiting process, but teams like Oklahoma, Ohio State and Louisville wanted the son of “Big Play” Ray Buchanan late in the process, and he chose to commit to the Vols. After he played in five games as a true freshman and wound up with 20 tackles, last year was horrific.

Was Buchanan a star as a freshman? Absolutely not. He looked bad at times but showed some promise. Last year, he couldn’t find the field, playing in just six games and registering four tackles. This is a kid who had eight tackles against Alabama in his first year in the program. With his bloodlines and that kind of career start, for him to be a nonfactor last year was puzzling, at best.

This past spring, he was arguably the Vols’ top cornerback. That’s promising, but it’s also scary. UT must have better play out of the position moving forward, and it’s obvious this coaching staff believed this spring that Buchanan was one of the better options. Will that continue into the fall? That’s the million-dollar question.

Here’s the deal: The Vols moved freshman Alontae Taylor to the position late in the spring, and he showed immense promise. They believe he could be a starter there immediately, and there’s a reason teams like Alabama and Georgia wanted him on defense. Also, the Vols received a major late recruiting coup when Bryce Thompson flipped from South Carolina, and he’ll start his career at cornerback, too. That’s another dynamic athlete to go with Taylor. Freshman Brandon Davis is a promising athlete, but he’s raw. Then there are guys like Cheyenne Labruzza, Maleik Gray and Shawn Shamburger who are “tweeners” and will fit somewhere in the rotation, but will it be at cornerback? Marquill Osborne is going to be a factor at the position, too.

But Buchanan really did look good at times this spring; that’s not just lip service. He was healthier, in much better shape and didn’t look lost a lot of times. Is he a No. 1 cornerback for an SEC football team? No, he shouldn’t be. But he also shouldn’t just be a special teamer who can’t work his way onto the field. Whether that was because of the incompetence of Jones’ staff or because Buchanan wasn’t doing the right things on and off the field, I don’t know.

But, again, I stress: This is a fresh start.

Buchanan has the opportunity to step right into the fray this fall. If he is solid, it’s going to make the team better. It’s also going to elevate the competition and make guys like Taylor and Thompson better.

The Vols need him to really battle for that starting gig.

Football is near.

And it won’t be long until we’re gearing ourselves up for the Vols to usher in the Jeremy Pruitt era.

We all know 2018 likely isn’t going to be a pretty sight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk ourselves into the Vols being much-improved under the former Alabama defensive coordinator. After all, Butch Jones is gone.

You just can’t help this time of year to be a tiny bit optimistic, even if logic (and recent history) suggests this is going to be yet another rebuilding campaign in Knoxville. Pruitt wants to win now, and he definitely isn’t used to losing after successful tenures in Tuscaloosa, Tallahassee and Athens, Georgia.

He’s outfitted UT’s roster with more size, and an infusion of collegiate talent. And he’s won some recruiting battles for guys who must be able to come right in and make an impact.

But what about the dudes already on the team? Who needs to make a major step forward in 2018 for the Vols to rise above the 4-8 doldrums of a historically horrible season where it looked like the team quit on former coach Butch Jones and his staff?

Let’s take a look at our latest installment.

OFFENSE

No. 3 Ty Chandler, Sophomore Running Back

New Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt likes big backs. Though Chandler, the sophomore Montgomery Bell Academy running back, added a few pounds to creep over 200 pounds, he still isn’t what you’d call a bruiser.

That’s why Pruitt brought in Michigan State transfer Madre London, added freshman Jeremy Banks and converted Princeton Fant to the offensive backfield. It’s not an indictment of Chandler, who is expected to be the Vols’ primary back, but there are some questions about whether or not he is an every-down back in the SEC.

Many teams thought he would be out of high school, when he chose the Vols over Georgia, Ole Miss and others. Now, he’s just got to prove he’s the stud everybody thought he’d be a couple seasons ago. As a true freshman, he rushed for 305 yards and a 4.3-yard average running behind an absolutely horrible offensive line that was injury-riddled and inefficient. He also had 10 catches for 108 more yards.

With the way Tyson Helton wants UT to be able to throw the ball, Chandler’s ability to catch out of the backfield could be a major asset. But with Will Friend coaching the offensive line, Trey Smith back and that group expected to be better, it’s time for Chandler to shine.

He’s got another gear on the second level and has proved the ability to get outside the tackles. It’s arguable that toward the end of a forgettable 2017 season, he was more productive than John Kelly, who left for the NFL a year early and was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams.

The Vols need Chandler to be a beast. While it’s nice to have a veteran bruiser like London who has a lot of carries in the rugged Big Ten, and the Orange & White Game breakout of Tim Jordan was encouraging, this should be Chandler’s job. The Vols need him to realize his massive potential, and they’ll be a better team if the most talented player earns it.

Coming from Alabama, where it wasn’t abnormal to watch the Crimson Tide throw out fourth-string runners that could start for 100 other college football teams, Pruitt predictably wants quality depth at the position.

“I think if you’re going to be good at running the football in this league, you better probably have four to six guys,” Pruitt said at SEC Media Days this week. “It’s a physical game. When you turn around and hand the ball (off), there’s 11 guys on the other side that are usually big and fast and angry trying to hit you, so there’s lots of contact. I think you probably need four to six guys.

“It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out with these guys. I know they’re working hard. I think we’ll probably need all of them before the year’s over with.”

That’s true, and the Vols will definitely need at least four of those guys to step up. But Chandler needs to be an elite playmaker, a guy who is capable of being a game-breaker and somebody who can get the tough yards as well. If he’s not, the Vols will be forced to have one of its most electric athletes watching from the sideline.

DEFENSE

Darrell Taylor, Junior Outside Linebacker

A year ago, as a redshirt sophomore defensive end, Taylor was supposed to be a defensive leader who got after the passer for Bob Shoop’s defense. Instead, he was a nonfactor late in the season, finishing with just 27 tackles and 4.5 for a loss, only making headlines when he was suspended indefinitely.

Some of the whispers surrounding Taylor’s off-the-field actions were disturbing as he obviously battled maturity issues. It was yet another frustrating aspect of a forgettable ’17 season under Butch Jones.

Now, with Pruitt in town, Taylor moved back a level to play outside linebacker where he is expected to play pass-rushing specialist outside linebacker. It’s a spot he played this spring to mixed results, and he shed 7 pounds this offseason and now sits at 247 pounds. The Virginia native looks like the perfect fit for the position, and he could again be a leader on what is expected to be one of UT’s deepest positions.

At linebacker, the Vols should have Taylor, Jonathan Kongbo, Jordan Allen, Darrin Kirkland Jr., Daniel Bituli, Will Ignont, JJ Peterson, Deandre Johnson, Austin Smith and others. That’s a very strong unit on paper. If Taylor produces the way he should, though, he’s a perfect prospect to break out under the new coaching staff. It’s just a matter of how he adapts to position coach Chris Rumph’s tough-love style.

Pruitt actually praised Taylor’s work in the spring, though he didn’t talk much about individual players too often.

“Darrell has done a good job this spring,” Pruitt said, according to GoVols247’s Patrick Brown. “He seems to be willing to learn. He needs to improve on how he plays on special teams, I can tell you that. I told him that after the scrimmage (on Saturday).

“He’s done some good things on defense from rushing the quarterback and was stout at the end of the line, but running down on the punt team, he couldn’t run no faster than me. That’s not how we want to practice.”

Typical Pruitt; praise with some grief mixed in. But it’s also been typical of Taylor, who can show flashes then frustration. If the Vols are going to be much-improved in 2018, they absolutely have to cause some duress on opposing quarterbacks. I love Deandre Johnson’s potential, and Jordan Allen and JJ Peterson could help, too. Everybody is intrigued to see what Kongbo looks like on the second level.

But Taylor can be a star. Whether he is or not is up to him, how much he grows up and how quickly he learns.

 

Families fight. Tempers flare. Insults — and sometimes punches — get thrown.

That’s the way it is in the South, and, though I haven’t been out of this region too much in my life, I assume that’s the way it is everywhere else, too. If you haven’t seen a conversation get a little heated at a family reunion, well, I’m not sure you’re from ’round these parts.

Most of the folks running programs in the SEC are, indeed, from ’round these parts.

Many of them have coached together, played against each other, recruited the same players and cut teeth on the same coaches.

Heck, the Nick Saban tree has reached its gnarled roots all over the conference. Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, Georgia coach Kirby Smart and Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt are all disciples of college football’s greatest coach. Will Muschamp played at Georgia, coordinated at Auburn, led a program at Florida. Heck, even “outsiders” like that Yankee Dan Mullen down in Gainesville has spent enough time in the league now that he’s common-law.

Some of these good ol’ boys like each other, take weekends at the lake together, shoot the breeze about a little ball together. Some of them don’t care much for one another.

That’s how good ol’ boys are.

So, when former Georgia players Aaron Murray and David Pollack puckered their bottom lips out and went poor-mouthing Pruitt on national platforms on Wednesday, nobody should have been surprised.

Said Murray to a radio station at the always-entertaining circus of SEC Media Days in Atlanta:

“I don’t know if his personality is fit to be a head coach. As a head coach, there’s so many things that go into it. It’s not just going out there and coaching. You have to deal with front office. You’ve got to go talk with the president. You have to deal with boosters. You have to deal with the offense. The defense. It’s not just going in there and scheming it up. … I don’t think he’s the right guy to kind of be the CEO of a corporation. He’s really good managing just a defense and being a defensive coordinator. He needs to prove to me that he can handle the whole ship. We’ll see what happens this year. I don’t think it helps that he doesn’t have a lot of talent at Tennessee.”

Pollack saw a place to pile on, and did so. The former UGA defensive end who took his share of beatings at the hands of the Vols has never had too much good to say about the program, anyway. He said according to Saturday Down South’s Michael Wayne Bratton:

“To address Aaron’s (Murray) comment — because I think it needs to be addressed a little bit — the stories that I have heard and some of y’all have heard that came out of Athens – that are true, (from) coaches that were on the staff, some of the things Jeremy Pruitt did to Mark Richt, some coaches would tell you are the most disrespectful, most crazy things they heard.

“So, I’ll be curious to watch Jeremy Pruitt as he evolves with this relationship with Phillip Fulmer because Jeremy Pruitt did a good job when he was with Nick Saban — because he knew where he stood. He did a good job with Jimbo Fisher — they let you know where you stand. The hierarchy was very clear. How does he evolve as a head coach?

“He put on a good show (at the main podium at SEC Media Days), he definitely showed you what he has. I want to see if he continues to treat people in the correct manner, if he respects authority, because to be honest, the stories we’ve heard — we’ve all heard the same stories, it was pretty bad. It was disrespectful, so that’s what I’m interested to see.”

In a separate interview, legendary high school coach and former Pruitt boss Rush Propst said Georgia was a little too “country club” before Pruitt got there. Saban himself addressed the buzz during his portion of Media Days.

Nick Saban’s response when asked about Jeremy Pruitt following comments from Aaron Murray & David Pollack: “He was always very respectful… I have never seen that style. It’s really surprising to me to hear people say that, because I’ve never seen it.”
Full quote from Saban: pic.twitter.com/Y3uXAukzRI

— SEC Mike (@MichaelWBratton) July 18, 2018

That Pruitt punched back only made things better. I’d have probably told him to take off his skinny jeans and put on some blue jeans, but that’s just me. Pruitt was a little more diplomatic but still got his point across.

“I look at it like this: 15 years ago, I was a kindergarten teacher, and today I’m the head coach at Tennessee,” Pruitt said. “So you probably don’t make that ascension unless you know how to treat people.”

You sick of reading quotes?

Oh, me neither.

This is awesome.

All that’s really missing is a soft pack of Winstons, a case of Bud Diesel and maybe a stained wife-beater or two. This is as close as we’ve gotten to “how-big-a-boy-are-ya” in this league in a long time. When a bunch of Southern boys get together and get in a baccer-spittin’ contest, fur may fly.

Sometimes, as we saw Wednesday, some of that Sand Mountain may come out when he gets a little sand in his craw. I was halfway waiting for a “By gawd” to be uttered.

Let’s all hope this is today’s SEC.

For us Tennessee fans, it may be a little while before we can re-enter the fracas on the football field, but Pruitt is already proving he can go into living rooms and battle the titans on the trail. He isn’t a stranger to this league or putting on his big-boy britches in hairy situations. He’s paid his dues as an assistant on the best teams in this era and in this country in the past decade, and this is now his time to run his program his way.

Mark Richt got to run his Georgia program his way, and though he was very successful during his tenure in Athens, his teams lacked toughness and he never really did as much with all that talent as he probably should have. The fans said it. The media said it. Some of Richt’s former players have even said it.

It took two years for favorite son Kirby Smart to come in and take the Dawgs to the cusp of the national championship last year.

Did he do something Richt couldn’t do or did he just inherit the talent that Richt was eventually going to do it with? We won’t ever know the answer to that. But [if the reports and the comments are true] Pruitt obviously didn’t care for the way things were going down there during his short stint with UGA.

Long-time SEC reporter Tony Barnhart said in the book Fulmer Hires Pruitt that Pruitt was outspoken about UGA’s need for a better indoor practice facility. Maybe that was one of the many things that irked the assistant; Richt didn’t run the type of program and do all the things Pruitt thought he needed to do to be successful.

When that’s the case, and things are going downhill [remember, Richt was fired following that season] things get a little haywire, especially when you’ve got alpha coaches who like to speak their minds.

“For the longest time when Mark Richt was there, there was this ongoing debate as to whether or not Georgia needed an indoor practice facility,” Barnhart said. “They had a small version and was not big. Some were saying Georgia needs one because Tennessee has one, Alabama has one, Auburn has one; some were saying well no they don’t need one. Mark Richt mentioned it, but he never pushed the issue and then one day someone came to Jeremy and asked him about it and he said Georgia is at a competitive disadvantage in not having an indoor practice facility at a place like Georgia. So that also impressed me and these things made me believe that someday he was going to be a head coach.”

Now he is, and he’s entering a situation at Tennessee that needs discipline, needs toughness, needs bluntness, needs truth. For years, we were lied to by a thin-skinned politician of a coach in Butch Jones, a man Paul Finebaum referred to on Wednesday as a “pathetic carny barker.”

Pruitt has been a breath of fresh air and the complete opposite.

Will he win football games? We can’t know that, and you absolutely cannot be “sold” on him until he does because if there’s anything Tennessee fans should know by now, it’s how to get sucked into faux hope and get burned.

But Vols fans love somebody who’ll stand up for their team and their program. Fulmer did it back in the day, and even though the Ol’ Ball Coach Steve Spurrier and his one-liners ran rivets down big orange chalkboards, the Battle Captain was good for a quip every now and then. Before him, Johnny Majors authored some of the greatest coaches shows and player comments in the history of the league. After Fulmer, of course, was Lane Kiffin and all the immature fun that brought.

Pruitt isn’t going to just sit back and water bamboo or stack bricks. As we saw on Wednesday, he’ll hurl those bricks back in the direction where they came. It was a heck of a good time, wasn’t it; like a post-wreck tongue-lashing at Talladega. And two of the three folks involved were gussied-up Georgia pretty boys with $100 haircuts.

Can you imagine what it’s gonna be like when Pruitt gets “his” players in there and starts going toe-to-toe with Smart [no love lost with that pair] or former bosses Saban and Fisher? This has the potential to be a whole lot of fun.

Whoo-wee! Rubbin’, they say, is racin’.

If this is today’s SEC, buckle up boys!

Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt knows that he needs to make the right decision about which quarterback to trot out onto the field this fall, but he also knows the decision needs to be made quickly.

At the podium during his main room appearance at SEC Media Days this morning, Pruitt said that each of the four quarterbacks he’ll have at his disposal this fall is going to get a chance to earn playing time.

“We have two young men, Jarrett [Guarantano] and Will [McBride] that were there in the spring,” Pruitt said. “They’ll have 15 practices under their belt. We add Keller Chryst coming from Stanford who has played football there, has experience. And we are adding another young man from California, J.T. Shrout. We’ll give those guys opportunities in fall camp.”

Despite everyone getting a chance, conventional wisdom suggests that the quarterback competition is going to come down to Guarantano and Chryst. Guarantano redshirted in 2016 and then threw for 997 yards and 4 touchdowns with 2 interceptions in 6 starts and 9 games played last season. Like Guarantano, Chryst redshirted as a freshman at Stanford. He then played in four games as a sophomore and 12 games as a junior last season, going 5-2 as the starter before losing the job to K.J. Costello. He threw for 962 yards and 8 touchdowns. Guarantano has an edge in the form of having a spring with Pruitt already under his belt, while Chryst may have an edge by being more of a true pro-style quarterback to fit into Tyson Helton’s offensive system.

McBride and Shrout may well be good prospects, but they simply don’t have the experience that the other two do. In filling in for an injured Guarantano last season, McBride threw for 152 yards and a touchdown with 2 interceptions, and he rushed 18 times for 70 yards. Incoming 3-star pro-style quarterback JT Shrout reportedly held his own at a QB camp last summer against some elite competition, including 5-star Georgia signee Justin Fields, the top dual-threat quarterback in the class, but Shrout is still just a true freshman.

Whichever guy is going to win the starting job this fall is going to have to do so quickly, as Pruitt also said that he is aware of the need to make an early decision for the sake of getting that guy ready to play.

“I think for us seeing what these other two new guys can do,” Pruitt said, “along with what the guys, see how they progress in fall camp, I think it’s going to be important for us as a staff to start whittling it down pretty fast so we can kind of create rhythm and timing and a little bit of chemistry on offense and figure out who our guys are going to be.”

Pruitt said earlier this year that he may not know which quarterback was going to start until the fourth quarter of the first game, and by that he may have just meant that you don’t really know how good a guy is until you see him in live action with the game on the line. But by his statement today, don’t expect him to draw out the quarterback competition this fall any longer than is absolutely necessary.

Tennessee fans got some not unexpected yet still extremely welcome news this morning when Jeremy Pruitt confirmed that two key players would be ready to go for fall camp:

JJ Peterson will “absolutely” be ready to go for camp.

Trey Smith is back.

Still the head coach despite Aaron Murray’s zingers. https://t.co/bLETLFdAuX

— @GrantRamey (@GrantRamey) July 18, 2018

Trey Smith’s availability was up in the air since a mysterious medical condition limited him in the spring. Today’s confirmation that it won’t keep him off the field this fall is huge news for an offensive line in desperate need of all hands on deck and a team looking for some stability and improvement in nearly every key area.

JJ Peterson, the highest-ranked player of the Class of 2018, has yet to arrive on campus despite signing a letter of intent back in February, and his absence has been a source of concern for some time. Pruitt’s confidence that he’ll be ready to go this fall is more welcome news for Tennessee.

Tennessee takes the stage in Atlanta today, and the media will unveil their picks for the 2018 SEC standings before the week is out. Georgia should be the overwhelming favorite in the SEC East coming off a near-miss in the national championship game and the number one recruiting class of 2018. How the rest of the division shakes out will be of interest to Tennessee, and not just this season.

This is an era Tennessee fans of my age (36) and younger are unaccustomed to. Georgia hasn’t won the SEC in consecutive years since the Herschel Walker days in the early 1980’s. The Dawgs have two sets of back-to-back division titles (2002-03 and 2011-12), but both times the second year came via a tiebreaker. Tennessee fans who grew up familiar with Georgia playing third fiddle have never seen a Bulldog program consistently on top the way they’ll have a chance to be in 2017, 2018, and beyond.

And the gap between one and two is substantial. Their traditional contemporaries at Florida and Tennessee changed coaches. Missouri seems due for an up year on the field, but is yet to level up in recruiting. Kentucky and Vanderbilt have yet to shed their reputations under their current administrations. Will South Carolina be the #2 pick in this year’s SEC East?

That idea may also seem foreign to those of us holding on tightly to Tennessee’s glory days in the 1990’s. But the truth is it’s not just South Carolina, but the vast majority of the SEC that’s been better than Tennessee the last ten years:

SEC Overall Records 2008-2017

Team	Wins	Losses	Pct.
Alabama	125	14	.899
LSU	95	34	.736
Georgia	95	39	.709
Florida	86	43	.667
Auburn	83	48	.634
South Carolina	81	49	.623
Missouri	80	50	.615
Texas A&M	77	52	.597
Mississippi State	74	54	.578
Ole Miss	69	57	.548
Arkansas	67	59	.523
Tennessee	62	63	.496
Kentucky	53	72	.424
Vanderbilt	53	72	.424

(data from the always-helpful stassen.com)

This is the Tennessee recruits know: not Kentucky and Vanderbilt, but not on par with the rest of the league either.

And this is where Jeremy Pruitt’s first comparison must fall: not to Georgia, and certainly not to Alabama. But what are his Vols doing against the rest of the SEC East?

#5: The Vols vs The Non-UGA SEC East

At the old site we did an annual off-season piece ranking the importance of each game for the upcoming season. It was equal parts fun and futility, because it’s impossible to know how good or bad Derek Dooley’s offense will actually be when Missouri comes rolling into Knoxville on November 17. But in general, I think we can say this for 2018: the five most important games will be the ones against the non-Georgia SEC East.

West Virginia will be the first impression and would be fun to steal, but Pruitt’s first real measuring stick will be how this rebuild is going compared to the one in Gainesville, how quickly it can catch what’s happening in both Columbias, and how well it can avoid another loss to Kentucky or Vanderbilt.

A little more than a month ago we looked at Pruitt’s relative recruiting success compared to the non-UGA East in blue-chip ratio. Tennessee’s has fallen, for the moment, below the 50% threshold needed to be in the national championship hunt. But the Vols are still out-performing the rest of the non-UGA division. Six of Tennessee’s 14 commitments for 2019 are four-or-five-stars, 42.3%. South Carolina sits at 6-of-16 (37.5%), Florida at 4-of-11 (36.3%), while Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt are yet to nab a four-or-five-star.

That’s good news for climbing the ladder in the future. In the present?

Here’s how the non-UGA SEC East projects in ESPN’s FPI, Bill Connelly’s S&P+, and Phil Steele’s Power Poll:

Team	FPI	S&P+	Steele
Florida	21	32	23
Missouri	29	30	28
South Carolina	28	35	24
Tennessee	54	79	70
Kentucky	60	64	75
Vanderbilt	76	75	85

As you can see, the preseason expectation for Tennessee is basically what the last ten years have been: better than Kentucky and Vanderbilt, but in a lower tier than Missouri, South Carolina, and Florida’s restart.

We’ve got this as only the fifth most important question for Pruitt’s first year. But it will rise quickly as time goes on. Derek Dooley had the Vols competitive for four quarters with the entire division in 2012 until he was a dead man walking, but couldn’t take advantage. Butch Jones should have won the SEC East in 2015 and 2016, but too many close games led to too many close losses before the bottom fell out. Now Georgia is the biggest threat within the division since Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow a decade ago.

The early returns in recruiting suggest Pruitt will bring in the necessary talent to get the Vols back in the conversation. How much progress will we see on the field in those five games this fall?

 

10 Questions for 2018

10. Which backups on the defensive line will be starters in 2019?

09. Can special teams make the difference in a coach’s first year?

08. What do we know about Tyson Helton’s offense from his time at USC?

07. Who’s the third/fourth wide receiver in an offense that will actually throw them the ball?

06. What about team chemistry with a first-time coach and a hodgepodge of players?