So what is the status of Jeremy Pruitt’s coaching future?

Jeremy Pruitt’s status


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bamamc1

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Oct 24, 2011
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He may or may not be, or maybe he owes the Executive Assistant a fortune (a "Frasier" joke although Hugh Freeze is an acceptable fill-in to explain it if you don't know).

That's the thing, though.

I am NOT - and my years on this board show this - I am NOT a knee-jerk Auburn basher as too many around here through the years have been. I don't hold to the notion that "we good, they bad," I know a number of fine Auburn fans personally.

But there is something that is sinister and next-level weird over there, too.They are the ONE college I could see willing to hire OJ Simpson as a coach who could teach them how to really go for the jugular and hit extra hard - if they were convinced he could beat Alabama. Bruce Pearl anyone? Cam Newton? They were talking to Bobby Petrino in the infamous Jetgate. There is an unhealthy obssession over there with some elements of their PTB (and even a good chunk of their fan base though not all as I said; we've got some morons too) that "just so long as we beat Alabama" nothing else matters. The rivalry should be healthy - not the reason someone lives or dies.

Actually, I should qualify my comment.

They'll insist new head coach Hugh Freeze hire JP as the DC.

And Art Briles as the OC.

I mean, I'm sitting here half convinced if they could rescusitate Joe Paterno, they'd bring him back "because he beat Bama and won national championships!"
More Dangerous than Nitro and Glycerin. lol
 

selmaborntidefan

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I would say there is a silent respect for Spurrier. Georgia fans may not like him due to his success over Georgia, but he is not the same type of character as someone like Meyer. Meyer is easy to dislike. Mullen I believe that he is just the most recent coach so I will give that dislike a recency bias paired with a used car salesman vibe.
Spurrier was an authentic arrogant snit.

Meyer is the same but tries to pretend he isn't.

People - Jawja people too - tend to respect authenticity more than phoniness.

"Yeah, I snorted a bunch of cocaine and went out and played" goes over a lot better than, "I was at the party, but I left before they took out the white stuff and went by the chapel on my way back to room to pray for the people who were consuming the drugs I keep insisting to you I never even saw or knew were there."
 

AlexanderFan

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Jul 23, 2004
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Not bashing the guy, but what on earth makes you believe he's smart at all?
This.

If he could've held his ego in check like Kirby and stayed here about as long as Kirby did, he would be the next coach at Alabama, easily. Instead he chose that environment where NOBODY was going to succeed and he got thrown under the bus and his reputation destroyed. All because he couldn't wait to prove himself, even though he was doing absolutely that here at Alabama.
 

4Q Basket Case

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Other than the delivery channel, which is easily remedied, what Pruitt did at UTe isn’t illegal anymore.

Without doubt, Pruitt knows his stuff on defense. But he has earned a reputation pretty much everywhere he’s been as an arrogant hothead. Without somebody like Saban to keep him in check, the only people he won’t anger are ones he hasn’t yet met.

I think he’s one of those guys who’s brilliant as 2nd in command, but just doesn’t have the temperament or self-awareness to be the CEO.
 

Padreruf

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Feb 12, 2001
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Without doubt, Pruitt knows his stuff on defense. But he has earned a reputation pretty much everywhere he’s been as an arrogant hothead. Without somebody like Saban to keep him in check, the only people he won’t anger are ones he hasn’t yet met.
In other words, he went to the Ray Perkins school of Personality!!
 

dtgreg

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I think the bottom line is Pruitt's place is as a defensive coordinator on a college football team. I don't think he has the tools to be a great head coach, but he has clearly shown, at 3 different locations, he has what it takes to be an elite defensive coordinator.

Just setting aside FSU and Alabama where he had the #1 defense, he took over Georgia which had the #89 defense. His two years there they went from that to 16 to 8. Remarkable improvement over a short period of time.

Once the smoke clears someone should end up with an amazing defensive coordinator.
You're all going to call me a conspiracy theorist and I hope you're correct. I truly believe that there will be collusion among all Power Five schools to blacklist Pruitt because he dared file suit against a school and to call Tennessee and their administration liars. I don't think you go against The Family and remain in The Family.
 

NoNC4Tubs

Hall of Fame
Nov 13, 2010
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Other than the delivery channel, which is easily remedied, what Pruitt did at UTe isn’t illegal anymore.

Without doubt, Pruitt knows his stuff on defense. But he has earned a reputation pretty much everywhere he’s been as an arrogant hothead. Without somebody like Saban to keep him in check, the only people he won’t anger are ones he hasn’t yet met.

I think he’s one of those guys who’s brilliant as 2nd in command, but just doesn’t have the temperament or self-awareness to be the CEO.
Pruitt keeps getting blamed for this and I can't see why. IMO, Phatimus had that whole thing set up and threw Pruitt under the bus to protect himself and his beloved school.

Why in the world would Phatimus have "retired" willingly if he WEREN'T involved in it? :unsure:
 

NoNC4Tubs

Hall of Fame
Nov 13, 2010
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You're all going to call me a conspiracy theorist and I hope you're correct. I truly believe that there will be collusion among all Power Five schools to blacklist Pruitt because he dared file suit against a school and to call Tennessee and their administration liars. I don't think you go against The Family and remain in The Family.
Who is "friends" with UT? I tnink that CFB has gotten so cutthroat that that couldn't posibly happen.

But I've been wrong before...:cool:
 

crimsonaudio

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Sep 9, 2002
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You're all going to call me a conspiracy theorist and I hope you're correct. I truly believe that there will be collusion among all Power Five schools to blacklist Pruitt because he dared file suit against a school and to call Tennessee and their administration liars. I don't think you go against The Family and remain in The Family.
Nah, no one cares what he did to fifteenessee - if he can make a defense championship-caliber, someone will hire him.
 

KrAzY3

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Jan 18, 2006
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I think the issue with what happened at Tennessee is it is pretty unprecedented.

I don't think we've ever really seen the yes, we did have major violations but it was all our head coach's fault used as a defense before ever. I'm not sure anyone really knows how to react to that situation and things could still get worse because in order for either Pruitt or Tennessee to "win" their side of the argument they basically have to prove wrong doing on the part of the other. It always seemed spiteful to me because every other program knew to just pay their head coach off not fire with cause because that's admitting wrong doing.

I guess part of it could indeed be that despite college football reportedly being a money printing machine, Tennessee seemed to prefer severe penalties to letting Pruitt get paid and go elsewhere.
 
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81usaf92

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I think the issue with what happened at Tennessee is it is pretty unprecedented.

I don't think we've ever really seen the yes, we did have major violations but it was all our head coach's fault used as a defense before ever. I'm not sure anyone really knows how to react to that situation and things could still get worse because in order for either Pruitt or Tennessee to "win" their side of the argument they basically have to prove wrong doing on the part of the other. It always seemed spiteful to me because every other program knew to just pay their head coach off not fire with cause because that's admitting wrong doing.

I guess part of it could indeed be that despite college football reportedly being a money printing machine, Tennessee seemed to prefer severe penalties to letting Pruitt get paid and go elsewhere.
Well they didn’t just blame it on Pruitt… they blamed it on his whole staff. Basically anyone attached with Pruitt is having a hard time finding a job right now.

What probably happened was what was rumored to have happened at Florida St. in that he ran his damn mouth to the wrong person and it started a process of getting rid of him. Everyone that isn’t wearing “Alabama never paid players” glasses acknowledges that Pruitt has been involved in paying players. I mean the dude was Rush Propst’s second in command for years, if you don’t think he learned some shady practices then I don’t know what to tell you.

But the thing with Tennessee is that he obviously hacked off the wrong person(s) and is paying for it. Tennessee unlike Auburn had the smarts in getting rid of a toxic relationship instead of letting it linger on. Did they do Pruitt dirty… Yeah but he is the idiot that took a job from the guy that stabbed Johnny majors in the back.
 

dtgreg

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I think the issue with what happened at Tennessee is it is pretty unprecedented.

I don't think we've ever really seen the yes, we did have major violations but it was all our head coach's fault used as a defense before ever. I'm not sure anyone really knows how to react to that situation and things could still get worse because in order for either Pruitt or Tennessee to "win" their side of the argument they basically have to prove wrong doing on the part of the other. It always seemed spiteful to me because every other program knew to just pay their head coach off not fire with cause because that's admitting wrong doing.

I guess part of it could indeed be that despite college football reportedly being a money printing machine, Tennessee seemed to prefer severe penalties to letting Pruitt get paid and go elsewhere.
This is what I'm talking about. Tennessee should be under TREMENDOUS pressure from the Conference and every other school to pay off Pruitt and bury this. The fact that they are not is "breaking the code". Pruitt has been basically obliged to file suit because he can't let them pin all this on him.

Normally, you take your money, leave and try to make the best of things. Tennessee is trying to screw Pruitt and unless they can prove they were squeaky clean, he's liable to win his suit. This sets extremely bad precedent for other schools. If Pruitt wins and is then forever denied employment, he may be able to sue the South Eastern Conference and maybe the NCAA for collusion.
 

mdb-tpet

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Sep 2, 2004
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This is what I'm talking about. Tennessee should be under TREMENDOUS pressure from the Conference and every other school to pay off Pruitt and bury this. The fact that they are not is "breaking the code". Pruitt has been basically obliged to file suit because he can't let them pin all this on him.

Normally, you take your money, leave and try to make the best of things. Tennessee is trying to screw Pruitt and unless they can prove they were squeaky clean, he's liable to win his suit. This sets extremely bad precedent for other schools. If Pruitt wins and is then forever denied employment, he may be able to sue the South Eastern Conference and maybe the NCAA for collusion.
For those of you who follow cycling, this is the Floyd Landis vs. Lance Armstrong kinda deal. Floyd was caught doping, and he asked Armstrong for help. Armstrong blew him off, and then Floyd went home angry and emptied his vault of dirty secrets. Good luck Tennessee/SEC for this to end well.
 
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KrAzY3

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Tennessee unlike Auburn had the smarts in getting rid of a toxic relationship instead of letting it linger on.
I can't consider admitting to major NCAA violations as anything remotely close to smart, especially considering a number of programs got off with little to no punishment on their major violations simply by claiming ignorance. I can see it as a spiteful move, or as a money saving move, or a little of both, but smart? They're admitting to major violations they could have as easily denied. Nothing about that seems smart to me.
 
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81usaf92

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I can't consider admitting to major NCAA violations as anything remotely close to smart, especially considering a number of programs got off with little to no punishment on their major violations simply by claiming ignorance. I can see it as a spiteful move, or as a money saving move, or a little of both, but smart? They're admitting to major violations they could have as easily denied. Nothing about that seems smart to me.

1) What can the NCAA really do at this point? Probably nothing considering that Emmeret is going and they are going to be forced to rule on something that was illegal one year and legal the next. So probably like Ole Miss at worse and Auburn at best kinda ruling.
2) Tennessee got rid of a bad coach that was making powerful people angry.
3) Pruitt is going to have a hard time saying they fired him without cause.

I think Tennessee easily won the divorce and the gamble of self reporting. Especially seeing that they are not paying Pruitt a dime and Pruitt is on the unemployment line. I hate Tennessee more than any other program but they found an effective way to get rid of a coach and not paying him.
 
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lowend

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Nah, no one cares what he did to fifteenessee - if he can make a defense championship-caliber, someone will hire him.
It's why people keep trying to hire Art Briles. Eventually - and it may be a long way down the line - someone will be successful in hiring him.
 
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81usaf92

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I mean, yeah, but Briles is probably even more toxic than Pruitt.
yeah I don’t think it’s that bad, but at the same time people should pay for their stupidity. The majority of this board saw something like this happening when he accepted the job. And one who graduated at Alabama in the 90’s should have known what making a deal with Phil was like.

So I’m not opposed to him being the loser in this case, though I really don’t care, and having to crawl and beg for Alabama to take him back. Maybe he will learn not to trust swindlers and thieves and to finally realize that if he wants to be a HC then not to take just any job because of the conference patch and the $ amount on the contract.
 

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