? When we hired Pruitt in 2017

#26
#26
volbound1700 said:
Steele would have been a better hire the Pruitt... granted, I am saying that in hind sight.

I remember being underwhelmed by the hire but I gave Fulmer a benefit of the doubt. Pruitt made comments about needing to improve play in the trenches and I liked his comments to start off with. Boy was it all fool's gold.
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I find it hard to agree here. Pruitt did one thing right, he brought in Hendon Hooker. Heupel recruited over Hooker with Milton and would have ridden him right off the cliff. If Heup had his way on that one and Milton never got hurt, he would have had about a 500 record and been shown the door at the end of last season. His system would have been a laughing stock because of a pitiful completion rate as Bazooka Joe tossed souvenir game balls into the stands every other attempt.
 
#27
#27
LordBolton said:
I find it hard to agree here. Pruitt did one thing right, he brought in Hendon Hooker. Heupel recruited over Hooker with Milton and would have ridden him right off the cliff. If Heup had his way on that one and Milton never got hurt, he would have had about a 500 record and been shown the door at the end of last season. His system would have been a laughing stock because of a pitiful completion rate as Bazooka Joe tossed souvenir game balls into the stands every other attempt.
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I think that is a short-sighted view. I think a big part of Heupel's success has been the culture he brought and a huge part of Pruitt's lack of success was the culture he brought.
 
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#30
#30
BigOrangeTrain said:
That’s easy to say now but back then you have to think about it. We were a dumpster fire. Just went 0-8 in the SEC. And honestly, hiring Pruitt wasn’t a terrible choice at the time. The thought was maybe he would be like Kirby Smart.

Yes the Pruitt hire ended up a disaster. But seriously at that point, how many head coaches would have wanted the job?
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Plenty better than Pruitt
 
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#31
#31
germantown902 said:
Didn’t Fulmer or the University bring in Kevin Steele after firing Pruitt to keep the program afloat? I think he served around 10 days as interim head coach and made about $900k for his efforts.
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Fulmer brought him in when the recruiting scandal first came to light. At the time, Steele was a defensive coach (not necessarily the future coordinator) and was supposed to be here longer. He was named interim coach but once CJH arrived, he let Steele go. Something like $1million for three weeks but, his contract was for a year. So, it was honored.
volbound1700 said:
Steele would have been a better hire the Pruitt... granted, I am saying that in hind sight.

I remember being underwhelmed by the hire but I gave Fulmer a benefit of the doubt. Pruitt made comments about needing to improve play in the trenches and I liked his comments to start off with. Boy was it all fool's gold.
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And, “when we get 10 to 12 of our guys in here”. I think we all thought he had potential but, none of us held our breath. We just knew better.

Then again, we all liked it that he lined up in the I formation on the goal line!
 
#33
#33
At that time, the University had been without leadership at any level for several years. They had destroyed the football, basketball, baseball, and track programs and were not going to be able to attract any coach with talent and a future......but they way undershot even those expectations when they hired Pruitt.

In a short period of time, the Vols hired Dooley, Butch, and Pruitt in football, Todd Raleigh in baseball and the little no neck guy who looked like Paul Bearer in basketball (couldn't even prounce Vols). I'm not sure any D1 program has made more bad hires in an athletic dept in a 10 year span in the history of college sports.

Most of that was Mike Hamilton's fault. He couldn't have been a worse AD if that has been his stated purpose.
 
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#34
#34
germantown902 said:
Didn’t Fulmer or the University bring in Kevin Steele after firing Pruitt to keep the program afloat? I think he served around 10 days as interim head coach and made about $900k for his efforts.
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Didn’t really benefit him extra…monetarily wise. It offset his Auburn buyout. Saved THEM almost a mil and socked us a little in the nethers.
 
#36
#36
LordBolton said:
I find it hard to agree here. Pruitt did one thing right, he brought in Hendon Hooker. Heupel recruited over Hooker with Milton and would have ridden him right off the cliff. If Heup had his way on that one and Milton never got hurt, he would have had about a 500 record and been shown the door at the end of last season. His system would have been a laughing stock because of a pitiful completion rate as Bazooka Joe tossed souvenir game balls into the stands every other attempt.
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Laughable post.
 
#40
#40
volbound1700 said:
Steele would have been a better hire the Pruitt... granted, I am saying that in hind sight.

I remember being underwhelmed by the hire but I gave Fulmer a benefit of the doubt. Pruitt made comments about needing to improve play in the trenches and I liked his comments to start off with. Boy was it all fool's gold.
Click to expand...

Steele would have just been another disaster.

Honestly, of our failed hires-I suppose I can say that Pruitt was the one who actually tried the hardest. He just didn't have the ability to make it work and was used to taking short cuts.
 
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#42
#42
GordonC said:
It was against Florida IIRC
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Beldar Cornbread
63e8d850-f43c-11e9-9dff-773df942ae21
 
#43
#43
HoleInTheRoof said:
I was full fledged bought into Grumors but the homer in me had me convinced Pruitt was gonna be an elite coach here.

🫤
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It wasn't just you. I was on vacation in NY and watched his press conference from our little flat we Airbnb'd.

I remember walking down the street in my Vols gear and a Penn State fan stopped me and wanted to talk football. He was praising us for hiring Pruitt, saying we just hit a grand slam. I was ecstatic.
 
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#44
#44
BigOrangeTrain said:
That’s easy to say now but back then you have to think about it. We were a dumpster fire. Just went 0-8 in the SEC. And honestly, hiring Pruitt wasn’t a terrible choice at the time. The thought was maybe he would be like Kirby Smart.

Yes the Pruitt hire ended up a disaster. But seriously at that point, how many head coaches would have wanted the job?
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Um, Butch Jones wanted the job. He believed that Tennessee was a career destination gig, even with public administration in-fighting, Hamilton as AD, and Kiffin as the coach who walked away after a year. We all saw how that turned out.

UT needed some changes up top before football was ever going to be righted. Donde Plowman got Danny White got Josh Heupel.
 
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#46
#46
BigOrangeTrain said:
That’s easy to say now but back then you have to think about it. We were a dumpster fire. Just went 0-8 in the SEC. And honestly, hiring Pruitt wasn’t a terrible choice at the time. The thought was maybe he would be like Kirby Smart.

Yes the Pruitt hire ended up a disaster. But seriously at that point, how many head coaches would have wanted the job?
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Mike Leach.
 
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#47
#47
HoleInTheRoof said:
I was full fledged bought into Grumors but the homer in me had me convinced Pruitt was gonna be an elite coach here.

🫤
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If you hire a bama coach, you hire the carpet bagger type. Been there a few years, learned things from saban. NEVER, EVER hire the dumbarse inbreeder type who was born and raised there. His allegiance was always to the sh*t hole of the south
 
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