It does show Tennessee is ready to move forward and be a player on the national scene. An 800k a year oline coach is putting your money where your mouth is. Now, did you hire a guy worth 800k is the question.
Who in the college level is, though? Cregg needed help from Chaney to repair UT's broken OL in '09 and Heistand needed help also from Chaney in 2010 and into 2011. Heistand got a lot of heat, left UT in 2011 and then put 4 OTs into the 1st Round in 4 years and another 2 in the 2nd Round. Friend might be a good OL coach, but this rebuild would likely be out of Pittman's capabilities and he's the best in college ball IMO.
Your top four that are worth 800k IMO: Hand, Cregg, Hiestand, Pittman. Those are the cream of the crop. I think Pittman is pushing a million a year at UGA. Hiestand already worked here and threatened to kill Dooley. Brent Key is highly regarded as well, but working for Alabama tends to do that. He did do a very good job for a really long time at UCF, though. Friend is below those guys
If UT could have gotten Chaney/Pittman away from UGA I'd have likely slipped into a coma. I think Friend is likely a low-end Tier-2 OL coach. I'll hold off judgement until next year when he has had a full spring/fall with his starters and doesn't have his top guy out until right up to fall camp.
Is Friend top 10? Top 15? I literally no nothing about the guy and couldn't pick him out of a two person line-up.
I think Friend may very well be tier 2, but Pruitt probably didn't have a lot of people to choose from at the time. He's probably the best Pruitt could get at that time.
Also should be noted that Friend is probably the second best recruiter out of this bunch. He's top tier in that area.
