Tennessee football looks to be on the verge of another meltdown
After Kentucky defeated Tennessee 10-7 in football in 2011 in the “Matt Roark Game,” Derek Dooley lasted 11 more games as UT head coach.
When Mark Stoops and the Cats bested the Volunteers 29-26 in 2017 in the “Stephen Johnson Game-Winning Drive Game,” Butch Jones made it only two more games on the Vols sidelines before being fired.
So when Jamin Davis, Terry Wilson and UK put a 34-7 beat down on the Rocky Toppers last Oct. 17 in Neyland Stadium, Jeremy Pruitt would have probably been well-served to start contacting Realtors.
If you’ve had other things on your mind in recent days, the news out of Knoxville suggests that the UT football program is descending into full dysfunction.
Again.
Citing “a source with knowledge of the investigation,” the Knoxville News Sentinel has reported that UT is looking into “allegations of recruiting violations and impermissible benefits to athletes.”
The hold of Pruitt — 16-19 with two losing seasons out of three as Vols head man — on his job appears to grow more tenuous with each passing day.
FootballScoop.com reports that Pruitt is not presently allowed to hire new assistant coaches, even though he has two staff vacancies.
Nor is the UT coach currently permitted to extend incumbent assistants whose contracts are soon to expire (one of two UT coaches whose pact is soon to run out belongs to Tee Martin, the former national championship-winning Vols quarterback and ex-UK wide receivers coach).
Meanwhile, Tennessee is also “among the nation’s leaders with more than a dozen players in the NCAA transfer portal,” Football Scoop adds.
UT is now in quite the pickle regarding Pruitt and his future helming Vols football.
There are few institutions in America that have a more acute need for stability than the University of Tennessee.
Since 2008, there have been six different chancellors — counting two interim heads — who have been atop the chain of command at UT.
Tennessee has had four different athletics directors since 2011.
Pruitt is the fifth full-time Volunteers head football coach since 2008.
What Tennessee needs to do is — wait for it — copy its football guiding philosophy from what Kentucky has done with Mark Stoops.
In other words, hire a coach with a plan that the university believes in and then stick with the head man through adversity and give him time to rebuild.
Maybe that’s what Phillip Fulmer — the first football coach and the fourth AD in UT’s current cycle of dysfunction — had in mind when he gave Pruitt a two-year contract extension before the 2020 season kicked off.
At the time, the Vols appeared to have momentum. UT ended the 2019 season on a six-game win streak. Once Pruitt was extended, Tennessee opened 2020 with victories over SEC East rivals South Carolina and Missouri.
Yet that’s when the wheels came off in Knoxville.
From that 2-0 start, Pruitt and Tennessee went 1-7 the rest of the way. All seven of the defeats were by double digits, four of them by more than 20 points.
Meanwhile, in only three-plus seasons as UT head man, Pruitt has already seen 11 assistants depart from his coaching staff.
So what do you do if you know that, above all, you need to show patience with a football coach — yet there are off-the-field warning lights flashing over how the coach you have is running his operation?
That’s the spot Tennessee is in.
Thanks to Fulmer’s largesse to Pruitt, the coach is under contract through the 2026 season.
If UT wants to fire Pruitt without cause, the contract buyout would be $12.64 million, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports.
That’s why college sports cynics — and if you are looking much beyond the games, it’s hard to be anything else — wonder if Tennessee’s internal investigation into alleged recruiting improprieties within its football program might have an ulterior motive.
If significant NCAA rules violations were to emerge from the investigation, it could give UT a chance to fire Pruitt with cause or, failing that, to at least use the leverage to negotiate down the size of the coach’s buyout.
The Tennessee message boards are already handicapping the search for Pruitt’s replacement.
Does UT take a flier on Hugh Freeze — even with all the baggage the former Mississippi coach would bring?
Could Tennessee pursue a reunion with the current Ole Miss head man — and wouldn’t Lane Kiffin back in Knoxville be entertaining?
North Carolina State Coach Dave Doeren? Louisiana head man Billy Napier? Rutgers Coach Greg Schia … (just joshing).
Tennessee’s inability to get its football act together has been a continuing boon to Kentucky.
Over the past five seasons, UK is 37-26 overall, 20-22 in the SEC. In the same time frame, UT is 29-31 overall, 14-28 in the SEC.
So to close the circle, if Tennessee is soon to part ways with yet another head football coach, Pruitt will have lasted all of six games after losing to Kentucky.
