Last year I called Tennessee the Pitt of the SEC. I’ll still stand by that.
But to Tennessee and Jeremy Pruitt’s credit, they had substantial improvement in 2019. Pruitt’s insistence on playing a frightening amount of underclassmen in 2018 led to a ton of returning production for 2019 and concluded with a 19-spot jump in SP+, a gigantic leap in defensive SP+, and a 3-game increase in the win column.
Despite being Tennessee’s 40th (or so) choice in their comical coaching search, Pruitt has improved the culture and recruiting to even beyond Butch Jones levels, and has been able to utilize those pieces to effectiveness on the football field.