Roy Exum
In the last 50-plus years I cannot remember a silence quite like the fog that seems to have settled over the Tennessee football program. I must admit that I am more than a casual observer since I adore Southeastern Conference comings-and-goings, and my gut-hunch is that all is not well with the Vol Nation. I believe it is very probable that embattled football coach Jeremy Pruitt is scant inches away from a major change with his zip code. In the first place, nothing stands this still; you are either gaining ground or losing yardage in some shape or form every day.
That’s a guarantee – with noise or not.
For example, last Saturday morning Texas football coach Tom Herman was living the rosy life. He was having breakfast with some Longhorn recruits. His team had just mopped up the Alamo Bowl with the 55-23 slaughter of Colorado to go 7-3 on the season, ranked 20th in the polls. Further, two weeks earlier Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte issued a news release stating emphatically, “I want to reiterate that Tom Herman is our coach.”
As Herman, who had a record at Texas of 32-18 with a bowl game all four years, finished his breakfast – this four days after the shellacking of Colorado in El Paso -- Del Conte asked him to drop by his office. Herman was flat-footed fired. Not six hours later, Alabama’s fabled offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian had quit his $2.5 million-a-year job with Nick Saban moments before, and was introduced at a big press conference in Austin as the new Texas coach. Forget the 733 miles between Tuscaloosa and the University Texas campus. Do you see how much faster this is than the spread of COVID?
For the record, Herman’s buyout is $15 million for the remaining three years left on his “guaranteed” contract. If Texas buys out every assistant coach on Herman’s capable staff, the price tag rises to around $24 million. You’ll recall Auburn just gave its coach of eight years, Gus Malzahn, a check for a crispy $21 million to leave, so what is proving to now be the new norm in SEC football is “whatcha’ done for me lately?”
Malzahn had a 68-36 record with never a year when his Tigers didn’t win at least seven games. The charge was he couldn’t dethrone the giants and mediocrity doesn’t sate the crowd’s lust to “be the best or die with the rest.”
Pruitt won three games this season, his program is being investigated internally and by the NCAA. Seven very good Tennessee football players have already thrown in, opting to leave for the NCAA transfer portal. This includes the team’s top ‘edge’ linebacker Deandre Johnson (who was immediately grabbed by Miami) and quarterback J.T. Shrout (whose shelf life was less than a day before Colorado latched on to him).
For that matter, quarterback Jarrett Guarantano, who started the first half of the season for UT, went into the portal “before” the Vanderbilt game he was so disillusioned. It was almost too unbearable to watch. UT snapped a six-game losing streak by beating Vanderbilt and the word “Guarantano” has not been spoken by Pruitt since.
When the Vols used three quarterbacks in the 42-17 yawner over Vanderbilt, the biggest story was where was leading rusher Eric Gray in the backfield? Eric was back home and in a terse answer, “unavailable.” He was equally “unavailable” in the season-ending 34-13 loss to A&M. The Vols quickly announced COVID just days after they were picked to be the first 3-7 team to ever play in the Liberty Bowl and since then there hasn’t been a peep out of Knoxville.
Eric Gray is believed to no longer be on the team where this fall he rushed for 772 yards, scored four TDs and caught passes for two others. In 2019 Gray averaged 5.3 yards, a carry with four rushing and one passing TD. Yet, today, no one seems to know his whereabouts, which seems uncommonly odd for such a prolific sophomore. Yet at Tennessee under Pruitt, there has never been a call for accountability nor transparency, which has badly eroded the fan base and alienated a growing number of donors, lettermen and embarrassed trustees.
Usually by now teams are cutting the deadwood out of their staffs. There is no question Pruitt needs to do some heavy pruning but … not a peep. After the embarrassing 34-7 loss to Kentucky in the fourth game of the season, Jeremy abruptly fired co-defensive coordinator/line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh who had a $650,000 contract. When Shane Beamer was hired last month at South Carolina, UT offensive line coach Will Friend bolted. Wouldn’t you for a two-year deal and $700,000? Beamer also hired former UT assistant Tracy Rocker, who Pruitt cut after the 2019 season to get Brumbaugh, for $525,000.
I’m telling you – this is the way it works.
Yet at Tennessee there is quiet. Look around. Vanderbilt just made the hire-of-the-year, bringing former Commodore walk-on Clark Lea back home after his impressive rise in the ranks made him the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. He has quickly hired Wisconsin’s defensive line coach, Inoke Breckterfield, who had been at UW the last seven years and was so highly regarded he was making about $500,000.
Lea also just got Louisville’s running back coach Norval McKenzie to come back home; Norval was a teammate of Lea’s at Vandy from 2001-04 (1,491 yards, seven TDs) and is said to be among the best recruiters in the South. Lea has hired special teams guru Justin Lustig from Syracuse, who was also the team’s assistant head coach, and has been a finalist for the Broyles Trophy several times, which is awarded to the nation’s top assistant.
Suddenly Vanderbilt is electric, and Tennessee is not. I am telling you: Vanderbilt’s brilliant resurgence could be the tipping point for Pruitt’s ouster. Here’s how: Tennessee’s current recruiting class is guessed to be 15th in the country, which equates to sixth in the SEC. What you don’t see is that there are just three in-state players on UT’s signee list and of the “Top 10” players in the state, only one – Nashville offensive tackle William Parker – will wear orange.
In 2016 – just five years removed, right? -- nine of the top 11 players in the state signed with UT. I’m talking about cats like Jalen Hurd, Todd Kelly Jr., Josh Malone, and Derek Barnett. The 2016 class was able to knock on the door of the SEC East twice, yet in the last three seasons – all under Pruitt – the University of Tennessee has won a total of 10 SEC games.
You say high school football in Tennessee is down. That’s absolute baloney. The 2020 crop is anything but … instead, look at how badly the Big Orange tree is being picked. It’s glaring and, what’s more, Vanderbilt has finally got a chancellor -- Daniel Diermeier – who is a sports nut and who vows to immediately overhaul the university’s archaic facilities, pump “whatever it takes” into the athletics department budget and swears the joke is over in Nashville.
This time next year Vanderbilt has deep-set plans to own the best schoolboy talent in the state because Tennessee will be smothered by Clark Lea and his showcase staff in the Vols’ own back yard. The movie line is “You can’t handle the truth!” but I am telling you as plainly as I can. When the whistle blows, everybody on a winning team must come off (the ball) at the same time. Tennessee can no longer do this in the Southeastern Conference. In the big scheme, Tennessee is no longer a player. When you only win 10 conference games in the three years Jeremy Pruitt has been the coach, the Vols are “worse than average.”
Once a dazzling marquee program that could pick which of its games would be nationally televised, the networks don’t even bother to call any more. The “big boys” in the league aren’t laughing, they are simply past paying attention. Think about this: In 2021 Tennessee will be a Las Vegas underdog in almost every SEC game they will play. This isn’t to be cruel – it is simply the truth. At Alabama, where once UT was considered as big a rival as Auburn, the Tide has whipped UT so many times in a row that most of today’s Crimson crowd wasn’t born when UT last had a chance.
So here we are. Quiet. Still. And the silence is deafening. Every day it gets louder.
Understand, I have absolutely no inside knowledge but after all these years I can sense when the ominous winds blow. Something bad this way comes. If I had to guess? Jeremy Pruitt is as good as gone. These woods are too quiet. Instead of the fog lifting, it is becoming increasingly dense and given that athletic director Phillip Fulmer is content to let the fuse burn is telling.
Rather than give Pruitt a reassuring vote of confidence, it leads me to believe the hope is to pin down Pruitt with enough allegations from both investigations that the UT board can fire him “for cause” rather than dole out the millions for a buyout, especially since the result is hardly a bargain.
The big deal is that you never fire a head coach in any sport unless you’ve got better already in your hip. Tennessee’s “unlearned” zealots clamor for Hugh Freeze, who has done all but send out bumper stickers he wants the job so badly. But the bigger truth is Freeze has major baggage within the SEC … stuff the Vol Nation has no inkling about. Many in the SEC wish Hugh well but … well … he can never come back to the SEC family.
The obvious solution for Tennessee is to do whatever it takes to get the 66-year-old David Cutcliffe to leave Duke and sign a unique four-year contract not just to win, no bonus for bowl games, but to restore integrity, respect, and a deep and abiding love from Tennessee’s now-flattened fan base. Not to worry; David will win alright, once he gets the Vols certified performers pulling as one, and I’d give him enough capital to assemble the greatest crowd of assistant coaches’ minds ever gathered.
But I would make sure it would be publicly and privately agreed, that at age 70, David would have only one voice on who his successor should be to pick up the mantle and lead Tennessee forward. Cutcliffe would lay the groundwork, bring back the fan base, play every game with no penalties, no short cuts, no cheap points and, for God’s sake, convert on third downs. David would bring back discipline, pride in accomplishment not only in the win of the game but in the victory of every single play.
Yet today Tennessee is eerily quiet. Silent. While the world swirls and Auburn is assembling its staff, while South Carolina pays interim coach Mike Bobo $1.2 million to stay as Beamer’s top assistant and Saban searches for a replacement for the Tide’s $2.5 million assistant, the SEC this offseason resembles the last 20 laps at Talladega and there ain’t an orange car on the track.
Still and stagnant is deadly. Listen, something is fixing to blow up.
royexum@aol.com