Temperature of Pruitt's Seat Rising After Arkansas Loss
After their 24-13 loss on the road to Arkansas, Jeremy Pruitt's Vols find themselves at 2-4 and on a four-game losing streak. The season, already shot after blowout losses to Georgia, Kentucky, and Alabama, is truly dead after another double-digit loss, this one to the Razorbacks. Pruitt and his staff saw Tennessee build a 13-0 lead at the half, despite some highly suspect play calling on offense. The second half saw first-year Razorback coach Sam Pittman, offensive coordinator Kendall Briles, and defensive coordinator Barry Odom coach absolute circles around Pruitt and his staff. While the Hogs rallied behind their coaches, believing in them, trusting them, and using their adjustments to secure a victory, Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney called a miserable game, Derrick Ansley's defense still can't defend a slant, and Jeremy Pruitt botched his quarterback situation again, as well as a critical in-game decision. The Vols got badly out-coached Saturday, Pruitt's seat is growing hotter, and self-inflicted wounds are not helping his cause.
Things are going to start with Jim Chaney and the Tennessee quarterback situation. The Vols elected to use their bye week to prepare Jarrett Guarantano to continue to start. The fifth-year senior attempted a total of eight passes in the game, playing the entire first half and two drives in the second. He managed just 42 yards on those eight attempts before exiting the game with a head injury. After the Vols had run the ball 30 times in the first half, Arkansas was selling out to stop the Tennessee run game, yet Chaney continued to call runs into the teeth of the defense. The Vols spent a bye week to prepare Guarantano, only to allow him eight pass attempts in over a half of work against boxes stacked to stop the run. A total of 42 yards is not a good day, it is not playing well, in that situation, it is an offensive coordinator not trusting a quarterback to throw the ball, and the quarterback not proving him wrong. It is an ineffective quarterback, bad play calling, and forcing your offense to be one dimensional. After Arkansas made halftime adjustments, it appeared the Vols were stymied offensively and looked unlikely they would have held their lead even with a healthy Guarantano.Then the Vols made a change at quarterback, sending in Brian Maurer, who has been beleaguered with injuries during his two years on Rocky Top, and it was even believed he could redshirt at one point this off-season. Maurer entered the game and was subjected to the same awful play-calling of handoffs into the middle of the line repeatedly that Guarantano had seen much of the game. Maurer went 0-3 on his passes and came dangerously close to interceptions on two of them. After Maurer looked ineffective as the number two option, it appeared the Vols hadn't taken time to really prepare anyone beyond the embattled Guarantano, despite the off week. Tennessee then sent in true freshman Harrison Bailey, only to have him hand the ball off six plays in a row. Then, the Vols chose to have the freshman throw his first pass of the night on fourth down, but here we need to shift the spotlight to Pruitt.
The Vols were down 24-13 over halfway through the fourth quarter. They needed two scores to potentially tie the game, but Jeremy Pruitt elected to go for the first down. This resulted in Bailey's first throw of the night coming on a 4th and four, where everyone in the stadium knew the Vols finally had to throw. The referees blew a clear defensive pass interference call when Jalin Hyatt was hit in the back well before the ball arrived, but the missed call and batted ball ended up in an interception. While this was an especially ugly play call from Chaney, it was a terrible decision by Pruitt. The kind of awful, lost decisions he made in-game in his first year. The kind of decision that it seemed before tonight he had grown past in all respects except the quarterback position. The Vols could have attempted the field goal to make it an eight-point game. A touchdown and two-point conversion are far from automatic, but they can be done in a single possession. The Vols elected to pass up an opportunity at a one-possession game, and instead, put their freshman quarterback in a terrible situation. When asked after the game why he chose not to go for the field goal, Pruitt stated, “We felt it was too far to try it.” The attempt would have been from 42 yards, and Brent Cimaglia had already made kicks from 48 and 50 yards, making this response by Pruitt one of the more bewildering statements to come out of a Tennessee press conference since Butch Jones left Knoxville. It also made what happened next even worse.
After the Tennessee defense finally managed some pressure on Felipe Franks and managed a stop, only after the Hogs inexplicably stopped throwing the slant routes the Tennessee defense seems unable to stop, the Vols got the ball back. The Hogs knew it was a two-score game, and they took away everything deep down the field, forcing Harrison Bailey to hit check down after check down to move down the field. For some reason, the Vols continued to call plays where Eric Gray or Jabari Small set up in the middle of the field, directly in front of Bailey. While this allowed for easy gains, Volunteer backs were tackled in bounds, near first down markers. This cost them more and more time, and why some safety valve wasn't directed to the sideline was inexplicable and terrible play design. Still, Bailey took what the defense gave him and moved the offense down the field. For a moment, it looked as though the Vols would have a brief hope to potentially score, try an onside kick, and at least pray for a Hail Mary chance. It ultimately came up empty as the Vols ran out of time, and Bailey was intercepted trying to force the ball into the endzone at the end of the game. Had the Vols kicked a field goal earlier, that possession could have been Tennessee driving to try for a tying score. Instead, it was a heave hoping to have a chance at two further miracles as time expired.
The mismanagement of this game, the play calling, and the waste of a bye week come back on Jeremy Pruitt and his staff failing across the board. Jim Chaney hasn't installed a new or varied game plan since Missouri week, is calling runs against obviously loaded fronts, seems afraid to call a forward pass, is putting quarterbacks in horrid situations, and has failed to help develop that position at all. This is yet another game where Chaney just felt he could run straight ahead behind his line and win. Gray had nearly a hundred yards in the first half, and both he and the line played well enough to win yet again. However, they were yet again undone by Chaney refusing to adjust, running into 9-man boxes, and showing no hint of a passing game threat. Even with the abysmal play calling and utter mismanagement of the quarterback position, the Vols could have had a chance to tie if not for terrible in-game decisions backed up by logic that was simply wrong, coming from Jeremy Pruitt. The defense can't seem to generate pressure and still cannot solve the mystery of the slant route. That said, the defense was nowhere near as frustrating to watch as the offense. The Vols knew the adjustments they needed to make in their bye week, and they literally made none of them. After seeing a few drives of Harrison Bailey, it is painful to have to continue to ask why he wasn't prepared for a more significant role over the bye week, and why this isn't his offense going forward. Stubbornness, failure to make adjustments, and absolute failure in regards to the quarterback position have turned Jeremy Pruitt's seat white-hot in a season that really shouldn't matter. A feat that Pruitt can only blame himself and his staff for.
