Fulmer preaches patience to the Vols
Phillip Fulmer broke his silence on Tennessee’s struggling football program on Wednesday and preached a message of patience for embattled third-year coach Jeremy Pruitt.
The Vols athletics director offered his assessment of the football program during an interview on “Vol Calls,” the statewide radio call-in show on the Vol Network. It marks Fulmer’s first time publicly addressing the football program or Pruitt during the team’s fivegame losing streak.
“I have to really look at it from a big picture and realistically and not emotionally,” Fulmer said during his eightminute radio appearance. “Just the fact that our student-athletes have had the opportunity to compete and play games this season is a victory in itself. They’re facing challenges all the time that are unprecedented.”
Fulmer stopped shy of an outright vote of confidence in Pruitt, but he listed some improvements he sees in the program and compared the start of Pruitt’s tenure to that of former coach Johnny Majors.
Fulmer noted that Majors’ record through 30 games was 14-15-1 and that Pruitt’s record was 15-15 after 30 games.
Pruitt is now 15-17, and the Vols (2-5) are in the midst of their first five-game losing streak since they started the 1988 season 0-6.
“It took Coach (Majors) into his fourth and fifth year to get things turned around,” Fulmer said. “Right now, everybody wished it would happen quicker in the process.”
“I really think we’re a better football team than our record has shown. The team has played hard. I think the Auburn game was a good example of that.”
Majors won a national championship at Pittsburgh during the 1976 season before heading to Tennessee to jumpstart his alma mater. He went 7-5, including a 3-3 mark in SEC play, during his third season and finished his tenure at 11662-8.
Fulmer joined Majors’ staff in 1980 and replaced him as coach in 1992.
Fulmer discussed the challenge of playing this season in a pandemic and
repeatedly referred to Tennessee as a young team. The Vols returned eight starters on each side of the ball off last year’s team that finished 8-5, closing on a six-game winning streak that included a Gator Bowl triumph over Indiana.
“We have a great fan base — I love our fans — but I’m going to tell you, there’s nobody more impatient than Jeremy Pruitt,” Fulmer said. “He is intense and relentless to get done what he wants to get done. Coach has significantly changed and upgraded the talent of this football team, and we’re still a young team in a lot of ways.”
Fulmer’s address came as Tennessee’s recruiting class is wobbling. In the last week, UT has lost commitments from four-star cornerback Damarius Mcghee and five-star linebacker Terrence Lewis. The latter was the top-rated recruit in Tennessee’s 2021 class.
Tennessee’s class has slipped to No. 14 nationally in the 247Sports Composite. The Vols have 25 known commitments. The three-day early signing period begins on Dec. 16.
“Recruiting is the key,” Fulmer said. “We know how to practice. We know how to prepare for a game. We know
how to play physical. They understand the system on both sides of the ball much better. The coaches have done a really good job of that.”
Tennessee is scheduled to finish its season on Dec. 19.
The Vols will play No. 5 Florida (7-1) on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) at Neyland Stadium.
Fulmer hire Pruitt in December 2017 in his first move as AD. He awarded Pruitt a contract extension in September that included a raise scheduled to begin in 2021 and an increased buyout.
Pruitt is under contract through Jan. 31, 2026. Firing him would come with a $12.88 million buyout, plus additional millions to oust his staff.
An athletics director taking to the Vol Network airwaves to address a struggling football program is a move from the Tennessee playbook.
In 2017, then-ad John Currie went on the “Big Orange Hotline” two days after Tennessee lost to Kentucky to discuss the football program. Currie, though, was more tepid in his support of thencoach Butch Jones, saying that he supported the staff and the players. Currie shared an anecdote about his late father
as he assessed the program.
“He was a surgeon. And the surgeon’s creed is, ‘There’s no problem you can’t make worse by operating,’ ” Currie said then.
Currie reached for his scalpel less than two weeks later and fired Jones after a blowout loss to Missouri.
Each of Tennessee’s losses during its current losing streak have come by double digits, and that includes a 34-7 loss to Kentucky — the first loss to the Wildcats at Neyland Stadium since 1984. The program has shown little growth on offense, especially at quarterback. Frustrations are mounting in some corners of the fan base.
One caller during Wednesday’s radio show asked Pruitt when he was going to admit that he wasn’t a ball coach and go back to Alabama.
“You gotta know I’m pretty hardheaded, right?” Pruitt answered. “I do feel like there’s probably things that we all can improve on. I feel your frustration, man. I’m with you. I’m frustrated, too. But we’re working hard, all right? And we’re going to continue to work hard to put a product out there that you’ll be proud of, how about that?”