Right now, it looks like he is in over his head. Trying to do too much for one person. I think he will make some adjustments and delegate more. He needs to.
My honest feeling is that, given sufficient time, Pruitt will succeed here the way we all want him to. It’s tough sledding right now and will be for the next season too. By year three we’re going to see real Tennessee football again. The kind we can enjoy and go into big games knowing we can win, as opposed to “hoping to keep it close” like we’ve been doing the past ten years. It sucks right now but good times are a couple of recruiting classes away.
Could have made this thread before we even knew who the coach would be in 2018. We say that about all of them.
The difference (for me anyway) is that I never had the least bit of confidence that ddiapos or trumpet boy would ever amount to anything. With Pruitt, I feel like he’s got enough on the ball and understands what it takes to get to where we want to be because he’s been there before.
Given the success rate of first time coordinator-to-head coaches, I would not put money on Pruitt being successful here. But he'll get every resource in the world to do so, and if he cant do it, well...he cant do it. Wont be anyone to blame but himself, and it sucks to throw away another few years but I'd rather strike out on new coaches than hire someone like Butch or Dooley who had a proven track record of mediocrity*. *obviously I'd rather hire good head coaches from day 1 but this is the [uck fay]ing University of Tennessee so spare me that nonsense, it aint happening
Maybe I’m just being unrealistically optimistic but Pruitt just seems to have the vibe (if that’s the right word) of a legit coach. I do think Fulmer will be verrrrrry slow to pull the plug on him so he’ll get the time he needs to show what he can do. If he bombs, we’ll be even sicker of him than we were Jones or Dooley combined because the LAST thing the UTAD wants is another coaching search.
If he bombs, he will at least have had a S&C program in place for the next guy. The guy is 100% a football coach, he'll kill himself trying to make this work. I have my doubts, but year one results can be thrown out if vast improvement is shown going forward.
Agreed. Of the past three coaches, I like Pruitt by far the best. Kiffin was bombastic and it was cool for a minute but wore thin quickly. ddiapos was a turd from the get go and I was roundly criticized for pointing out (repeatedly) that Jones was the one guy that ddiapos beat like a rented mule. It may take a couple of recruiting classes but my gut is that we have our guy.
I enjoyed Kiffin's shit talking, but that was because I had listened to Spurrier for years and Fulmer say nothing back. Listening to Lane tell Urban to politely "Go to Hell" was fun, plus saying he would never lose to UGA the night before running laps around them in Neyland was great. Oh, he could also coach, as well. Hardesty going balls to the wall and Crompton getting noticeably better every week was great. Now, Dooley and Butch sucked, but for different reasons. Dooley was an entitled piece of shit who had his mom calling in on Finebaum's show to defend him. Butch was a sorry ass used car salesman that had nothing left to sell once Dobbs, Hurd, Kamara and Barnett quit carrying his dead ass
I didn't like Dooley but I thought he surrounded himself with a good staff. I didn't like Butch and thought he surrounded himself with a bunch of yes-men that had zero experience in big-boy ball. I like Pruitt and think he has surrounded himself with a good staff on defense. Jury is out on Friend/Helton and it's not looking good.
You get exactly one year to be over your head, and exactly one year change the culture, and exactly one year to blame the other guy's players. After that, your team is supposed to play good football. That may not be winning championships in year 2, but it should mean being tough and competitive and well coached. And there really should be signs of heading in that direction as year 1 progresses.
Those four singularly accounted for just about every win he had, barnone. If he wasn't such a dumbass and used Kamara properly, he would have had more wins and Kamara would have been a 1st Rounder.
He had Dobbs, Hurd, Kamara, Malone, Preston Williams, JaJuan Jennings, Marquez Calloway, and even that WR/TE that's now doing OK in the NFL on the same team. Then on defense you had Barnett, Sutton, and Reeves-Maybin. Just hilarious how little he got out of that.
I always believe that a good coach know how to utilize the players and their skills (or lack thereof) in order to win. Scheme to utilize strengths and hide weaknesses. We can all argue on how the weaknesses are glaring and the strengths are not being used, especially on offense (i.e. receivers). Does anyone think that since Fulmer has stated that this is a minimum 3 year rebuild, that he has told Pruitt to do whatever he needs to do? Therefore, Pruitt is determined to put a smash-mouth identity on this offense, even without the OL to do so? Or is the offensive ineptitude a direct result of Pruitt's hard-headedness and Helton struggling?
