05_never_again
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7-5 would have left him on really shaky ground. It could have gone either way. At 8-4 he absolutely would have remained, but probably not with an extension. He received an extension and a raise just a couple years before.I promise you, if Butch had gone 7-5 or 8-4 last season he'd still be at UT...probably with an extension.
Everybody knew that the 2017 team had lost a lot of talent from the previous season and wasn't going to be as good. Even though people were moving towards being really fed up with Butch heading into the 2017 season most people were throwing him that bone. The horrendous nature of the 2017 season did him in but what meandered him so close to the cliff in the first place was how the 2016 season ended. I didn't think he should have been fired at this point or anything, but I started to give up on him after the South Carolina loss in 2016, then had serious doubts he'd make it beyond 2017 after the Vandy loss in 2016. It was just stunning to me how a team with that much still to play for (even a Sugar Bowl berth to play for going into that Vandy game), came out so uninspired and unprepared. Absolutely symptomatic of poor coaching.
You are absolutely correct in that Butch thought he was doing a really good job here with an 8-4 regular season and Music City Bowl win. You could tell that with various comments he made over the years. Perhaps the most amazing thing about his tenure is the fact than a professional FBS-level head football coach was at a major job and did not have a good gauge at all of what the expectations were. I think he knew that football was a bigger deal at Tennessee than anywhere else he had been, the fan/media interest was more intense, etc., but he seemingly failed to understand how that kind of stuff also comes with much higher expectations. I'll never forget that one statement he made where he said that the 2015 and 2016 seasons "were some of the best seasons in the last 20 years." Simply by definition (purely win-loss), those seasons weren't better than 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, or 2007. The 2015/16 seasons, at best, were middle of the pack type years when looking at the last 20. The fact he was unaware of this, or just lying about it, was shocking.
That's one thing I'll say about Pruitt...I have no idea if he'll be successful here yet but I guarantee you that if after 3 years the best he's done is 6-6/7-5, or if after 5 years the best he's done is 8-4, he'll expect to be fired. The guy at least knows tactical football and what his employer expects of him.