This time, Gene Stallings made the phone call. Otherwise, Jeremy Pruitt would have had no issue with reaching out to his former head coach from Pruitt’s two years playing for Stallings at the University of Alabama.
“No [it wasn’t just a congratulatory call]; Coach Stallings has checked in with me almost every week, either before the game or after the game,” Pruitt said on the heels of becoming Tennessee’s first coach since Doug Dickey in 1964 to take an unranked team on the road and beat a ranked team in his first season. “He has given me some really good advice when we have had a big win or have had tough losses.