Saturday marked the first time Jeremy Pruitt took the field as Tennessee’s head football coach. And it resulted in a loss.
Pruitt lost his debut as the Vols’ head coach, marking the first time a Tennessee head football coach lost his first game at the helm of the program since Johnny Majors lost his head coaching debut with the Vols back in 1977. Tennessee was beat soundly by No. 17 West Virginia, 40-14, and Pruitt didn’t put the blame solely on his players for the loss.
After the game on Saturday, Pruitt stated that the loss was “on him” and that he needs to get better as a head coach. On Monday, he still retained that sentiment.
When asked how he evaluated himself after his first game as Tennessee’s head coach, Pruitt offered up some criticisms of his own coaching style.
“I gotta do a better job where I can contribute on both sides of the ball,” Pruitt said during his press conference on Monday. “I think there’s lots of lessons that I can take from this game. I’m a defensive-minded guy, so when you’re sitting there watching the offense, I need to know exactly what I could do to help give some influence to the offense. I need to do a better job of that in a game.”
This year marks the first time Jeremy Pruitt has ever been a head coach. In fact, it marks the first time in his coaching career that he’s focused on something other than the defensive side of things. Pruitt has been a defensive coordinator, a defensive backs coach, or a defensive assistant during his entire coaching career dating back to his high school coaching days.
But as a head coach, he can’t just focus on the defensive side of the ball. He has to make contributions on offense too.
Pruitt’s honesty about his coaching debut didn’t stop there either. He was also critical of a decision he made late in the first half that might’ve cost the Vols some momentum and gave West Virginia a chance to add to their slim lead at the time.
“There’s probably one critical mistake that I made myself in the game,” Pruitt explained. “When we punted the football and had fourth and four with 1:58 left, I should’ve let the clock run out. I thought that was a critical mistake there. We could’ve run the clock down to a minute and 30 seconds. You know, they end up getting a field goal there.”
At the time, Tennessee was only trailing West Virginia 10-7 when the Vols punted it away under two minutes to go in the first half. After an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty was called on Austin Pope after the punt was fair caught at the 10, West Virginia took over at their own 25-yard-line with 1:52 left in the half. The Mountaineers drove 72 yards on eight plays and capped off the possession with a 35-yard field goal as time expired, taking a 13-7 lead into the half.
Ultimately, that decision didn’t turn out to cost Tennessee the game as West Virginia ended up scoring 20 points in the third quarter, but if Pruitt did drain the clock more, do the Mountaineers drive down the field as quickly and give themselves a little momentum heading into the half?
Though we’ll never know what might’ve happened, Vol fans were relieved to hear Tennessee’s head coach take responsibility for his actions and admit to making mistakes. Fans often criticized former head coach Butch Jones for rarely owning up to his miscues, a point of contention that only grew as the losses piled up.
Pruitt will get a chance to correct some of his own mistakes and hone his coaching ability this upcoming Saturday when the Vols face ETSU in Neyland Stadium for Tennessee’s home opener.
