Debut finally here for Pruitt
KNOXVILLE — Luke Pruitt had an eight-day head start on the career milestone his brother Jeremy will reach Saturday, and he learned an important lesson while leading northeast Alabama’s Pisgah High School to a 21-19 win in his debut as a head coach.
“We were talking about his game,” Jeremy Pruitt said Wednesday, “and he said that at 6 o’clock his principal came up to him and asked him if he had seen the officials. And he said, ‘No, I haven’t.’ And then the principal said, ‘Well, you did call and make sure we had officials for this game, right?’ And he said, ‘No, I thought you did that.’
“So we kind of chuckled about that. I’m glad that I don’t have to set up the officials for this game.”
Although Jeremy Pruitt will not have that duty for Tennessee’s 3:30 p.m. season opener against 17th-ranked West Virginia at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, he — like his brother — has new items on his pregame to-do list.
“Just from a standpoint of travel, itineraries, dress, academics, the whole thing,” Jeremy Pruitt said.
Despite the added responsibilities, a massive raise and everything else that has changed since Pruitt became the Volunteers’ head coach in December, it’s what remains the same for the 44-year-old that stands out as he tries to turn around a team that suffered through a program-worst 4-8 campaign a year ago.
“He’s always coaching,” redshirt junior linebacker Quart’e Sapp said. “That’s one thing you can always expect from him. He’s going to keep it cleancut and dry. He’s going to tell you what you need to work on.”
Twenty years ago, Pruitt embarked on a coaching journey that began with the role of defensive backs coach at his high school alma mater, Plainview in Rainsville, Alabama. Two decades later, he can still be found instructing defensive backs during practices, albeit under quite different circumstances. The football field is his oasis. Without it?
“I’d probably be starving,” Pruitt joked on the “Vol Calls” radio show this week.
The credentials are hard to debate. A former assistant at Alabama, Florida State and Georgia, Pruitt has been part of five national championships and coached 13 first-round NFL draft picks. He has assembled a staff at Tennessee with equally impressive résumés, and they have sold Tennessee’s players on buying in to their way of doing things.
“We have a great staff with many coaches that have been to the promised land that everybody wants to get to: national championships and winning national championships,” senior defensive end Kyle Phillips said. “I just believe that just gives us as a defense and as a team a lot of confidence to know that, why can’t that be us? That could be us.
“These guys have been there, done that. We just need to follow their lead.”
Junior safety Nigel Warrior called the new staff “excellent teachers.”
“Adjusting to this defense is not hard,” Warrior said. “He keeps it very simple for us to learn. It helps you on the football field. I feel like I’m being more intelligent with my game play and I can play with instincts instead of thinking.”
Like many of the other key players on Tennessee’s defense, Warrior, Phillips and Sapp already trust Pruitt’s leadership.
“You don’t really even have to Google about his stats or anything,” Sapp said. “His name speaks for itself, and that brings excitement for the defense. The team as a whole as well, having a head coach with his résumé and bringing him here, a lot of guys are excited.”
Now comes the first true test. West Virginia provides a daunting challenge in the opener. With the Mountaineers expected to have one of the nation’s top passing attacks again, Pruitt’s wizardry with the secondary will be immediately tested, giving him plenty to worry about in addition to the litany of responsibilities he is adjusting to in his lead role.
The other four new Southeastern Conference coaches have openers against Football Championship Subdivision foes. Each also has been a head coach previously.
Not Pruitt. There is no dress rehearsal.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how well our staff has prepared our team,” he said. “Is our team going to compete the way we want them to compete? Kind of all the intangibles that we’re looking for?
“You’ve been working for nine months trying to build a team … you kind of have an idea of what kind of identity you want them to have, but what they put out on the field, how they play, all that, it’s the first time they get a chance to show who they are. So I’m looking forward to seeing it.”
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.