When Jeremy Pruitt opens his mouth, he not only sounds like us; he also says what we want to hear. None of the words are sugarcoated, but they’re honest, laced with the guarded optimism and measured hope of a coach who believes he’s done everything he can to prepare his team to play.
Now, they’ve just got to go out and do it.
We don’t know what to expect from the Vols on Saturday, and none of us know whether that means there’s a quiet confidence around the program or whether Pruitt simply isn’t the type of guy to dish out a lot of excuses.
Either one would be a refreshing change from the previous regime. You never could trust what Butch Jones said, as there was either manufactured-but-tired attempts at swagger or padded statistics and buttered-up “facts” that were really just attempts to lessen the blame for losses before they happened.
How many times — and for how many years in a row — can we be forced to hear about having the “youngest team in …”?
Thankfully, those days are over, and we can all pull for Pruitt if for no other reason than he’s the anti-Jones. But the true definition of whether he’ll be beloved or bemoaned is what his team does on the field, the positions his players are in to make plays, the development of those guys, the game plan and execution of it and, ultimately, wins and losses.
Saturday is an opportunity. Of course, every game is. But Saturday is a chance for Pruitt to get a signature win in his first-ever game as a head coach. It’s not like the Vols are playing a powerhouse program that looks like, on paper, it will boat-race them. This Mountaineers team’s best win a year ago was against an up-and-down Iowa State.
They lost to Virginia Tech (31-24), TCU (31-24), Oklahoma State (50-39), Texas (28-14), Oklahoma (59-31) and Utah (30-14). The last three losses came with star quarterback Will Grier out after he injured his throwing hand against the Longhorns. But the first three losses (and part of that Texas setback) came with him at the helm.
This isn’t a juggernaut.
The wins came over East Carolina (56-20), Delaware State (59-16), Kansas (56-34), Texas Tech (46-35), Baylor (38-36), Iowa State (20-16) and Kansas State (28-23). Woof.
We know what the ‘Eers will bring to the table with a stable of able receivers, led by senior David Sills V and quarterback Grier, who last crushed out souls in the Gators’ comeback win in 2015 that was capped by his 4th-and-14 completion for a touchdown. We know he’s good, but we know what’s coming.
West Virginia doesn’t. And coach Dana Holgorsen has been conjuring up whiny excuses all week from lamenting that Tennessee has had more practice time than the ‘Eers to making petty comments about all the “or’s” on Pruitt’s depth chart. It sounds familiar, almost like the Butch Jones School of Manufacturing Reasons Why I May Lose. I’m not suggesting WVU is going to lose this game, but I also don’t think the Mountaineers have any idea what team is going to trot out in orange and white Saturday.
Listen: Maybe the Vols are going to be putrid. After all, we’re coming off the worst season in school history where Jones’ team lost eight games for the first time in the storied history of the program. Even during the dark days of the past decade and the many losing seasons the Vols have suffered in recent years, nothing was worse than 2017. The entire team quit, nothing looked right and by the end of the year, UT wasn’t even competitive with Missouri and Vanderbilt.
It’s very easy to get lulled into the thought that Pruitt isn’t a miracle worker, and it’s still going to be bad.
He may not be a miracle worker, but he is a worker. The Vols have taken on a workman’s mentality, and the team responded. It’s interesting, to say the least, that Pruitt back in the spring poor-mouthed his team, talked about how poorly they were practicing and rarely mentioned anything positive about individuals or the team as a whole. The tone shifted since then. Either the public relations team got a hold of him and informed him that wasn’t a way to sell tickets, or things got better.
Pruitt doesn’t seem like the type of coach who dashes fairy dust and frolics while tossing around roses and preaching of rainbows and unicorns. That’s not what he learned growing up and playing ball in Rainsville, Alabama, that’s not the atmosphere he was around Boots Donnely at MTSU or Gene Stallings in his playing days at Alabama, and that’s not what he’s shown throughout his days coaching for high school legends like Rush Propst and college legends like Nick Saban and Mark Richt.
It seems like he thinks he’s got something, and even though it may not be a championship-caliber team, it could be one that has listened, responded and improved. Sometimes, a team needs a jolt of belief and a change of scenery, and that’s exactly what happened in Knoxville. Rather than the mass exodus of players many predicted from the cushy world of Jones to the structured tenure of Pruitt, there have been just a handful of guys leave from last year.
Most stayed, and several of those guys left for dead are primed and poised to make a difference Saturday. The resurrection of Jonathan Kongbo’s career must be fully realized with an impact in a game, but he’s shown flashes. Kyle Phillips and Shy Tuttle have looked better, and Baylen Buchanan is a no-doubt starter against the ‘Eers. Drew Richmond won a job this summer, and other players who failed to live up to expectations are emerging, too.
Can everything come together? It has to now if it’s going to. It’s time right now. Unfortunately for the Vols, they don’t get a warm-up game. One of the two biggest swing games for the entire season happens this weekend, and the other one (Florida) comes September 23. Win those two games, and it’s the difference between a possible 4-4 start with a chance to run the table and a 2-6 flop where everything must go right with questions swirling around the disappointment.
The margin for error is slim. But that’s the state of the program, the fear of the fan base and the truth of the schedule.
An awful season this year is not necessarily a red flag, and neither is a clunker of a game on Saturday. Many pundits are predicting both of those things, anyway.
But this weekend’s season opener is a chance to prove all those things wrong. This isn’t Oregon or Oklahoma, a national championship contender without weaknesses. This is a team with a very suspect defense that is relying on graduate transfers up front and a running game with an unproven (but talented) starter in Kennedy McCoy. The passing game is dynamic and among the best in the nation, and the Vols have concerns rushing the passer and in the secondary, but the latter is Pruitt’s speciality, and they have some talented young guys on the back level.
There are plenty more question marks for the Vols, but it isn’t like the Mountaineers don’t have their share, too.
Nobody knows how this matchup is going to shake out. It feels a little bit like the 2006 season-opening win over ninth-ranked California or bowl games against Northwestern and Iowa where there is such a contrast of styles that few know how it’ll actually materialize between the lines. On paper, West Virginia looks like the winner, but that’s against a disappointing UT from 2017 that may or may not show up.
The Mountaineers are 17th nationally coming off a 7-6 season from a year ago. As we’ve mentioned, that record is tainted by Grier’s injury, but they also weren’t the ’85 Bears before he got hurt, either.
The Vols fired their entire coaching staff, and more than 30 new players have suited up for them since a spring session that saw Pruitt get — and stay — salty.
It may seem like a long shot for Tennessee to win this game, but the unknowns surrounding this team feel a little like they’re being underrated nationally. Is that wishful thinking? Sure, maybe. But it’s also a major opportunity for Pruitt’s rebuild to get a massive early jolt.