Kentucky linebacker Boogie Watson sacked Tennessee quarterback Jarrett Guarantano. (SEC Photo)
If you listen very closely you can hear it. That’s the sound of Tennessee Head Football Coach Jeremy Pruitt whining about why his team hasn’t won a football game on either of the last two Saturdays, including an historic 34-7 beatdown by Kentucky, and is now 2-2 after a 2-0 start. In the post game press conference after his team’s epic loss to the Wildcats in Knoxville — after saying he didn’t like to make excuses — he went on to make excuses by blaming lack of practice time due to Covid19, poor communication with staff and players due to the requirement to wear a face mask for safety purposes, poor play calling by his offensive coordinator on the excellent “pick six” interception by UK cornerback Kelvin Joseph, a defensive line that he said wasn’t physical enough and a lack of work ethic by 90 percent of his team and on and on it went.
I think he threw everyone under the bus except the guy running his press conference.
After his 20 minute post-game monologue on Saturday he continued the scapegoating by firing Jimmy Brumbaugh — his defensive line coach for exactly four games — on Monday because he said they had “philosophical” differences. Pruitt said he would personally coach the defensive line for the balance of the season.
So, Jeremy Pruitt, after 29 games as head coach, has a record of 15-14. (As reference Butch Jones, the previously fired Tennessee Head Coach that Volunteer fans hated, had a 14-15 record after 29 games). Pruitt has a devastating 2019 opening season loss to Georgia State — a Sun Belt team that has only had a football program since 2010 — on his record and now he is the first Tennessee football coach to lose to Kentucky in Knoxville since 1984 — a 35 year stretch. Former coach Derek Dooley didn’t do that during his tenure and he was fired. Neither did Jones. And he didn’t last either.
The sad thing about Jeremy Pruitt is that he truly does not seem to recognize the problem. He has had massive turnover on his coaching staff in two plus years at Tennessee. He has lost or fired two offensive coordinators, two defensive coordinators, three running back coaches, two co-defensive coordinators and two special teams coordinators. That is an incredible amount of changes to the coaching staff in 29 games.
Without continuity on the coaching staff it is very difficult to create any type of player development and the cracks are starting to show. The Volunteers seem to have no identity on offense or defense, their quarterback play is erratic at best and by Pruitt’s own words he doesn’t feel like all his players are 100% on board.
It seems that the team and coach who were the darlings of the National Media prior to the Georgia game — several picked UT as the dark horse to win the SEC East — have now become the laughingstock of the SEC two weeks later. Their offense has scored 7 points in the last 6 quarters, their quarterbacks threw 3 interceptions — two of which were “pick sixes”— and lost a fumble in the Kentucky game last Saturday. Against Georgia the week prior the Volunteer offense had three turnovers and ended the game with minus 1 yard rushing for the entire game. And yet Jeremy Pruitt chooses to fire the Co-Defensive Coordinator and Defensive Line Coach as part of the solution to the problem.
Pruitt’s actual quote about the firing was, “This is no knock on Jimmy as a coach whatsoever. He is one of the most knowledgeable guys I have been around and he’ll do a good job wherever he goes. It’s just something that I felt like we needed to do and we did it.”
So it appears to me that Jeremy Pruitt is a continuation of the long line of bad coaching hires that Tennessee has instituted since the firing of their former head coach but current Athletic Director, Philip Fulmer, after his 5-7 season in 2008. (Go figure that one out).
The 34-7 Kentucky loss seems to have really agitated the Tennessee fan base and created a firestorm of complaints on social media.
One writer who covers the Tennessee program, Trey Wallace at FoxSportsKnox, said this about Tennessee’s loss to the Wildcats on Saturday, “I have seen a lot of terrible moments in my 22 years of life as a Tennessee fan. The embarrassing loss to Wyoming in 2008, LSU and UNC in 2010, Oklahoma in 2015, Florida in 2017 and Georgia State last year, just to name a few.
This tops the list and it ain’t even close. This loss feels much worse.”
So there you have it. With one win in Knoxville Kentucky seems to have brought the entire Tennessee Football program tumbling to the ground. But for Mark Stoops and Company it is just one more black mark on the Kentucky Football list of shame that has been eliminated. No longer can the media say that Kentucky has the longest road losing streak against an opponent of any team in the country. Like the losing streak to Florida and the overall losing streak to Tennessee and so many other streaks associated with Kentucky Football, this one is history.
But don’t say anything to Jeremy Pruitt about ending the streak. It would just give him one more thing to whine about.
— Keith Peel
