Jeremy Pruitt Shares Thoughts on Deandre Johnson Targeting Call, Vols Penalties

Targeting is a necessary addition to football in general, but it has quickly turned into one of the most controversial calls in the game. It is easy to see why, when players are ejected from the game because of it. Tennessee's Deandre Johnson suffered that fate during Saturday's contest, and it left the Vols without their most productive pass-rusher for the majority of the game.

Earlier this week, Jeremy Pruitt was asked his thoughts on the call. He said, "First off, it was a bad decision on his part. He took 2.5 steps. The whole thing about, really any defenseless player, if you can avoid contact and you see that, it's your job as a defensive player to do that. I always felt like this rule, there's probably inconsistency in the rule. It's a good rule though, because it helps our game, and it helps protect our players, but, it is a tough rule to kind of enforce. There have probably been some inconsistencies in my opinion over the years. I think that Deandre should've avoided the quarterback, it's pretty simple. He knows that."

Johnson was disqualified from the contest after making helmet-to-helmet contact with Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett. Because the penalty was committed during the first half, Johnson will be eligible to play the entire game against Kentucky this Saturday.

Pruitt voiced displeasure in how his team played from a discipline standpoint on Saturday, as he added, "Well we talked about Deandre's. They throw the ball over the middle there – probably wasn't a very good thrown ball – but Tank (Jaylen McCollough) was playing the ball and as he went to play the ball he did hit the wide receiver about half a count too soon, so they'll probably call that. I felt like it probably should have been a no call, based off he's playing the ball, but you know that's bang bang, it's judgmental, its hard to see, right? I mean it happened so fast; I get it. The big thing is, to me, we had an offsides penalty on defense, we had a pass interference call down the field. It's 2nd and 9, it's fixing to be 3rd and 9, we're in three-deep zone and we let a guy get behind us and then don't play the ball, so there's a couple of penalties. And then you throw in, on the offensive side I think we had five false starts. So, just communication, got to do a better job of that, obviously. And had a couple of holding calls, so not very good. We've got to eliminate those"

Tennessee will look to regroup against Kentucky this weekend at Noon ET on the SEC Network.

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