Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt surprises Vols by joining protest march

Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt is suddenly doing everything right.

The SEC is a rough place for a football coach to ply a trade; even those who honed their craft under Nick Saban tend to have a rough go at it. But after going just 13-12 in his first two seasons at the helm of the Tennessee Volunteers, stern and sometimes surly head coach Jeremy Pruitt has got all the right moves.

Amid an offseason full of head-turning impressive recruiting wins, the coach just put forth his finest work yet — surprising his Vols players by joining them for a protest march in Knoxville this week.

Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt racking up wins this offseason.

The killing of George Floyd reopened deep, painful wounds across the nation and the world, but you’d perhaps be less than shocked if Pruitt, who tends to be prickly with members of the media, wasn’t strictly on the front lines in Knoxville. You’d almost let him off the hook for such a thing if you’re a Big Orange fan, as the program stunned the college football world in late spring with a two-week recruiting run for the ages, gaining 11 total commitments, including seven different four-star guys.

This latest bit of work, however, is Jeremy Pruitt’s best.

“I had no clue he was gonna be out here,” Vols quarterback Brian Maurer said of the coach via The Athletic, “and I don’t think anybody else did. That was a big shock to all of us, and I have even more respect for him now.”

As if the guy hadn’t earned enough clout already. As if he hadn’t turned UT into the toast of college football during this trying offseason.

It simply proves incontrovertibly that this man is committed to the project on Rocky Top. The whole project; not just the one that takes place between the famous checkerboard end zones at Neyland Stadium.

“This is what we have to do, and we have to do it together,” Pruitt said.

Such poise and motivation are infectious. And you can bet that the equity built up here and now will pay off unambiguously when it’s time to clash with the likes of Alabama and Florida this year.

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