Should Tennessee fire Jeremy Pruitt if Vols lose to Texas A&M?
By John Buhler
The Tennessee Volunteers falling to 3-7 could mean the end of the line for Jeremy Pruitt.
The Tennessee football team is not getting any better under Jeremy Pruitt who finds himself on the hot seat.
It may be a 10-game, conference-only slate, but the Vols supposedly had the talent to go 6-4 this season. They did not need to contend with the Florida Gators and the Georgia Bulldogs in the SEC East this year, but there is no reason Eliah Drinkwitz’s Missouri Tigers should be the third-best team in the division. Could Pruitt be gone after a seventh loss on the year to Texas A&M?
A preseason extension to Jeremy Pruitt makes this highly unlikely
What this comes down to is if former head coach turned athletic director Phillip Fulmer has seen enough out of his fire hire. Pruitt may have signed a multi-year extension this past offseason, but if there is a Tennessee booster willing to cough of eight figures to make a change, Tennessee will make a change. The question is who could be the top head-coaching candidate for the job?
Tennessee would only do this if it could get its first choice to lead the team, and not the seventh choice like Pruitt three years ago. Liberty Flames head coach Hugh Freeze would be the top choice. He has viewed this as his dream job and would be a pathway back into the SEC after leaving Ole Miss in disgrace in 2016. This cannot be another Greg Schiano debacle in Knoxville at all.
So will Tennessee fire Pruitt after an expected awful home loss to No. 5 Texas A&M? It would take a Kevin Sumlin getting pantsed in the Territorial Cup by Arizona State to the tune of 70-7 to make a Pruitt firing more likely. Odds are that Pruitt will get a fourth year to lead Rocky Top before Fulmer makes a decision to move on from his ineffective head coach. Maybe ahead of 2022?
Pruitt may not be the answer, but Tennessee is not stable enough of a job to hire another coach.
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