Expectations for Tennessee’s football team heading into the 2018 season weren’t very high. Nationally, most football analysts were predicting the Vols to potentially go 4-8 again or go 5-7 at best. Most weren’t expecting the Vols to win more than one SEC game, and they didn’t anticipate the Vols to put up much of a fight against their tougher opponents.
But through 10 games this season, Tennessee has exceeded expectations. And the way they’ve done it has some people talking about Tennessee’s head coach deserving consideration for SEC Coach of the Year.
Hear all of our exclusive interviews with recruits, coaches, and others along with our recruiting podcasts by becoming a member of RTI Premium today!
Jeremy Pruitt has helped lead the Vols to a 5-5 record through 10 games, and he’s guided his team to two wins over ranked opponents. He became the first Tennessee head coach to get multiple wins over ranked opponents in his first year as UT’s head coach since Phillip Fulmer did so back in 1992 while serving as interim head coach and again in 1993. This year is only the third year since the beginning of the 2008 season in which Tennessee has beaten at least two ranked opponents, the others coming in 2016 and 2015.
SEC Network’s Laura Rutledge tweeted out after Tennessee’s win over No. 11 Kentucky on Saturday that Pruitt should be SEC Coach of the Year, and Paul Finebaum asked Pruitt about all the discussion about him being considered for that award on Monday.
Pruitt downplayed that talk.
“Well I can tell you this, I haven’t played one down,” Pruitt said during his appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday. “And it takes a lot more than one person to go into having success each and every week. I think we have a fantastic staff, great support staff, good administration. We have everything we need here to have success.”
If Tennessee wins out and goes 7-5, Pruitt will likely only hear more talk about him deserving Coach of the Year in the conference. But he has some stiff competition in the SEC for the award.
Nick Saban looks well on his way to leading Alabama to an undefeated regular season, one in which they’ve dominated every single game they’ve played. Dan Mullen took over a 4-7 Florida team and has them at 7-3 on the year right now. Mark Stoops has Kentucky ranked and with a chance at their first nine-win season since 1984, and Ed Orgeron has LSU two wins away from a 10-win season and are poised to finish second in the West.
Regardless, Pruitt’s success is coming as a first-time head coach at a program that went 4-8 overall and 0-8 in SEC play last season. This season has seen its fair share of ups and downs, but Pruitt is pleased with how his players have continued to work. And that foundation could help Tennessee in the future.
“Our players are buying in to what we’re trying to get done,” Pruitt continued. “We’re trying to create the right habits. We’ve got a very young football team. Madre London and Keller Chryst are the only seniors on offense. We’re playing four or five juniors, so we’re playing a lot of freshmen or sophomores offensively.
“We’ve taken our lumps some weeks, but they continue to come back each week to continue to work hard to improve. If we can recruit us some good guys to go along with what we’ve got here, we’ve got a chance down the road.”
As Pruitt stated, Tennessee’s 2018 season hasn’t been easy, nor has it been a steady progression all year. The Vols suffered three 26-point losses in their first five games, but their sixth game of the season saw them defeat a ranked Auburn squad on the road. Then UT got pummeled by Alabama and followed that up with a close loss on the road to South Carolina in which they led for most of the game. Tennessee came home and slept walk their way to a 14-3 win over Charlotte before dominating No. 11 Kentucky in a 24-7 win this past weekend.
All of that has put Tennessee in a spot right now to potentially make a bowl game a year after suffering the worst season in program history.
“I think our guys have just went to work. They’ve never questioned what we’re trying to get done,” Pruitt said when asked what’s been the reason for the turnaround this season. “It would be easy for em’ to do that because we’ve had some times this year that didn’t hardly go our way, but our guys believed in what we’re trying to get done, and they’ve went to work. They’ve never questioned anything, and I think that says a lot about the guys in this program.”
Tennessee needs to win one more game to automatically qualify for a bowl game this season, and they’ll have an opportunity to get that win this weekend when Missouri (6-4, 2-4 SEC) comes into Neyland Stadium for a 3:30 PM Eastern kick-off.
