Tennessee Football: What is your favorite thing about Jeremy Pruitt?

Tennessee Football offensive lineman Brandon Kennedy talked about his favorite thing about Jeremy Pruitt in a recent episode of The Slice podcast.

Jeremy Pruitt is entering his third year as Tennessee football’s head coach, and it seems that fans, players, coaches, and everyone all around like Pruitt and what he’s doing at Tennessee.

In a recent episode of The Slice, a podcast produced by The University of Tennessee’s Athletic Department, the question, what’s your favorite thing about Pruitt, was proposed to Tennessee offensive lineman Brandon Kennedy.

A lot of people like Pruitt because he doesn’t play games or cling on to gimmicks, others like him because he’s a hard-nosed defensive-minded coach that likes to go out on the field and beat up his opponents to win games. There are many reasons to like Pruitt, and Kennedy didn’t name either of those nor necessarily anything specific that he does on the field.

"“The thing I love most about Pruitt is that he’s honest,” Kennedy said on The Slice podcast. “As a coach and everything, that’s the number one thing that an athlete or a student-athlete, recruit, that’s the number one thing you look for. You just want somebody to be honest with you kind of tell you how it is. Sometimes the truth hurts, you know like constructive criticism and something that you need that to improve and things like that. So, that’s the one thing that I admired the most about Coach Pruitt and also try to, you know, put that into my leadership.”"

We’ve seen over the past month or so where Tennessee has been on fire on the recruiting trail. If recruits are looking for honesty, then maybe Kennedy is right, and those guys see what Kennedy sees in Pruitt, and that’s why they’re all hopping on the commitment train right now.

Pruitt isn’t going to beat around the bush or tell you only what you want to hear; he’s going to be honest with you and not play any games. After the fiasco we just witnessed a few years ago, I can’t think of a better reason to like a coach.

I really like Pruitt with what he’s already done with Tennessee on the field. Of course, he hasn’t had a ten-win season or beaten Florida, Georgia, or Alabama just yet, but there have been flashes that I haven’t seen in any of the last few coaching administrations.

The 2018 Auburn game is one example where no one expected Tennessee to go to Auburn and leave with a win. That Tennessee team wasn’t very good, but the Vols were more physical than Auburn, and Pruitt outcoached the Auburn staff.

Other games where the final score doesn’t really represent how well Pruitt coached was last year’s Georgia and Alabama game. Tennessee didn’t have the talent to beat either of those teams, but the coaching staff outcoached both opponents to keep Tennessee hanging around for a lot longer than they were expected to.

Before a fumble on the goal line, the Vols trailed by 15, but a touchdown would’ve made it an eight-point game in the fourth quarter against Alabama. It was a night game in Tuscaloosa, and Alabama should’ve beaten Tennessee 50-0 according to the experts and what Alabama had on paper compared to Tennessee.

Pruitt comes from a football background that’s built on winning. He’s not going to do anything crazy and hope on luck to win close games, he’s going to be more physical and outcoach his opponents, and that’s what I like about Coach Pruitt.