Tennessee Football: Phillip Fulmer must do what’s best for Vols

Tennessee football is abysmal and athletic director, Phillip Fulmer has some important decisions to make. What must happen?

Most thought the Volunteers reached rock bottom in 2017. For the first time in school history, Tennessee finished with a 0-8 record in the SEC. There was no way that things could get worse.

Au contraire.

After a nightmare of a coaching search, the Volunteers were left with no choice but to turn to the University’s most beloved football coach, Phillip Fulmer, to step in as acting athletic director. It wasn’t long after, that Fulmer wrapped up the coaching search by hiring Alabama defensive coordinator, Jeremy Pruitt.

One game in, it became obvious to anyone who has covered college football, that Pruitt was way in over his head. When you are taking over a rotten culture, like Tennessee’s, the last thing that you as a leader needs to do is blatantly kick a whiteboard out of anger. It just doesn’t look good.

What looked even worse was the fan base supporting the whiteboard kick. As a member of the Knoxville community, I heard things such as “Finally, a coach with passion!”, “It shows how much he cares!”, etc. I merely shook my head. A fan base so lost, that they get a rise out of their head coach kicking sideline equipment.

Getting angry? That’s one thing. I’ve seen Nick Saban chew out plenty of assistant coaches. I’ve seen Jimbo Fisher jerk around a couple of face masks to get the players’ attention. But I have never seen someone kick a whiteboard. That’s some Woody Hayes stuff.

Coaching talent has nothing to do with anger, but it sure builds off of it. Jeremy Pruitt is a proven defensive genius. He has set records everywhere he has been. There is no denying his success as an assistant. But when you are given that leading headset, your job goes far behind coaching from a playbook. You have to be capable of spreading a message.

This is something, going off of Pruitt’s public speaking abilities, that could definitely be posing a problem in the locker room. He seems to have an issue with saying the wrong things at the wrong time. You can’t compare your football program to rats scrambling off of the Titanic. You just can’t do that.

For one, that’s a message that today’s teenagers clearly are not going to be able to construct in their heads. And secondly, Pruitt’s predecessor, Butch Jones, already proved how important it is to keep from saying too many stupid things.

Tennessee is in shambles and Fulmer needs to make an important decision. There are two obvious directions that he can go.

Direction No. 1: Leave well enough alone

Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, Jeremy Pruitt. You see the trend? No, it’s not incompetent coaches that Tennessee keeps wasting money on. Well, yeah, maybe it is. But that’s not my point.

The Volunteers are going to have to allow Pruitt time to turn this mess around. Jones had minimal time and he was able to produce back-to-back 9-4 seasons. That says a lot for a man of his caliber.

Allow Pruitt to build a team of his guys, including a better man under center. Harrison Bailey arrives on campus next season, and if he proves to be as successful at Tennessee as he is in high school, then the Volunteers should be able to ride his coat tails for a couple of years.

Leave well enough alone for right now. Let’s see what Pruitt is capable of doing whenever he has a talented quarterback. If things look to get worse next season, then kick him to the curb.

Direction No. 2: Start from scratch — again

If Pruitt is as lost as he appears, then things can only go downhill. He has had control of the team for two off-seasons and a full regular season. One of the greatest offensive coordinators in the country has been overpaid to come in and “fix” Jarrett Guarantano. But somehow, the Volunteers look no better now than they did in 2017. In fact, they look 10 times worse.

Time has shown that Fulmer seems to only care about Fulmer. He likes to be behind the wheel of the success bus. He likes to be the man with the good ideas. That being said, no, Fulmer will not return to the sidelines if Pruitt is fired. That would be a downgrade from his current position. He’s on top of the world as athletic director. He has no interest in being the head football coach.

But in order to carry that AD position with justification, Fulmer has to ask himself one very important question, “Should I allow Jeremy Pruitt to have access to Harrison Bailey?” It’s a serious question and a major one at that. If Pruitt is a flop, then do you really want him to coach the best potential quarterback on campus since Tee Martin?

Fulmer’s evaluation over Pruitt may be the most important thing to happen on Rocky Top since that gone but not forgotten 1998 season.

If Tennessee doesn’t start taking culture seriously, then the university’s football program could become so lost that it can’t be saved.