2019 has become about 2020; really, it’s about 2021 and beyond. If the Vols somehow find a way to get to six wins this season, we’ll rightfully celebrate it. But Tennessee’s win expectancy hovered around 4.2 on our site before the Gators won 34-3. With Georgia and Alabama still to come, Tennessee is looking at a scenario where it needs to go 5-1 against Mississippi State, South Carolina, UAB, Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt. I think the Vols can win games in that stretch to extend the conversation. But five-of-six asks for a consistency that seems beyond what this team has shown itself capable of.
There’s a mental concern too: how long will this team keep fighting at 1-3 when it seemed to fold after Guarantano got knocked out of the Missouri game last year at 5-5? Wes Rucker advocates holding out on a full-on youth movement until after the Alabama game, while playing upperclassmen with NFL futures to help their stock. Something like that could still represent progress in the back half of the season when the schedule does lighten just a bit, but you’ll still need some kind of investment from both upper-and-underclassmen for progress to show up.
As others have pointed out (including the most well-rounded take I’ve seen from Andy Staples at The Athletic), it’s a fairly simple equation for Pruitt and Tennessee in the big picture. It’s in no one’s best interests for the Vols to move on from him this season. From a competitiveness standpoint, the Vols are at the lowest point of my lifetime; we said even after BYU it’s best to measure progress from the bottom instead of to the top. It’s funny: I thought that might be a little more freeing when watching Tennessee against Florida, but so many of the mistakes still bring the same feelings of frustration.
Pushing the reset button right now just adds time to the clock. The Vols need to compete well enough, with some wins thrown in, for Pruitt to continue to recruit at a reasonable level. I’m not worried about Tennessee’s national ranking of 22 in recruiting for 2020 right now; the Vols are still at the blue chip ratio target of 50% in that class, which would make two years in a row. But with only 14 commits at the moment, will they be able to stay there or close to it as we approach the signing period? One thing slowing the process right now is the makeup of Butch Jones’ final recruiting class, when the Vols couldn’t parlay any momentum left from consecutive 9-4 ranked finishes into anything better than five blue chip players in a class of 27 in 2017.
Even before Georgia State, we thought it was true the guys who would ultimately decide Pruitt’s fate weren’t the upperclassmen on this roster. That was especially true at quarterback. Fans are going to be quick to anoint Harrison Bailey, and we’ll see. But you can at least create reasonable competition if you play Brian Maurer, whether now or after Alabama. Guarantano does have a year left, but might also find a graduate transfer situation appealing after all he’s been through.
It will always be worth pointing out that Jim Chaney has been part of the two biggest QB reclamation projects I’ve ever seen involving Tennessee players. Jonathan Crompton was 61-of-122 (50%) for 667 yards (5.5 ypa) with four touchdowns and six interceptions against UCLA, Florida, Ohio, and Auburn in 2009. And then he played himself into the NFL Draft in the second half of the season. Any conversation about Guarantano’s performance being the worst we’ve ever seen has clearly forgotten Nathan Peterman in the same venue six years earlier; Chaney was with him the first of two years at Pitt, which led to eight NFL appearances.
The difference with Guarantano is he appears to be getting worse. And with Georgia and Alabama on the horizon, the windows for improvement are shrinking.
We’re also aware a youth movement is already underway in several spots. Guys who will ultimately be involved in the big picture conversation about Pruitt – Eric Gray, multiple offensive linemen, Henry To’o To’o, most of the secondary – are already in the mix. Unfortunately, there aren’t many of those options on the defensive line, where the Vols simply are who they are: a group replacing every starter and without Emmitt Gooden that cannot generate any pressure against an SEC offensive line by themselves. The youth movement there is in high school: BJ Ojulari and Dominic Bailey join Harrison Bailey and safety Keshawn Lawrence as Tennessee’s highest-rated commits.
But you also can’t roll into 2020 expecting to make decisions about Pruitt based on what freshmen defensive linemen do in the SEC. This whole thing is going to last longer than anyone wanted to get figured out.
If Pruitt continues to recruit reasonably well, you at least let him put more talent on the roster and really see if he can grow into this job. He stays long enough to decrease the buyout and do the thing Kiffin, Dooley, and Butch Jones failed to do: leave the program in better shape than they found it.
There’s also a long-term scheduling note here, one that hasn’t paid off for Tennessee this season but might in the future. The Vols are going to be massive underdogs when they go to Oklahoma next September. But after that, there’s a relative dip in Tennessee’s schedule over the next few years. All those jokes about Tennessee and Arkansas needing to play each other for morale will come true next season when the Vols go to Fayetteville. In 2021, it’s Ole Miss in Knoxville. And the Vols will go home-and-home with Pittsburgh in 2021 and 2022, followed by the return match with BYU in Provo in 2023. There are no guarantees, but at least Pruitt isn’t facing the same scheduling gauntlet Butch Jones saw (Oregon, Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech in the non-conference; Auburn, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Texas A&M, LSU from the SEC West).
The one assumption for this season was progress. That’s still important, it just looks a lot different. The real goal now is maintaining investment: with players, with recruits, and with fans week-to-week. Can the Vols compete enough to make us believe they have a chance to win when we turn on the TV against everyone other than Georgia and Alabama? The Vols clearly weren’t beating the Gators, but going forward you’d like to see less of four turnovers and four personal fouls and more winning and losing honestly. It’s the best way to continue to make an honest assessment of Jeremy Pruitt, and the reality of where this program is right now.
