Pruitt gets emotional postgame, praises Tennessee's 'fight'
ATHENS, Ga. — Jeremy Pruitt has lost his first two SEC games as a head coach by 26 points each, but after another defeat to a division rival, Tennessee’s head coach couldn’t help but choke up talking about his football team on Saturday night.
“I’ll tell you this, people on both sides of the field, they know they were in a game today,” Pruitt said, getting emotional after the No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs beat the Vols 38-12.
It’s going to take a long time, but in glimpses Saturday, you could see what “the right direction” looked like for the team in orange.
Tennessee was out-gained by more than 200 yards and was terrible on third down, but the Vols, who were athletically challenged a multiple spots Saturday, weren’t completely outclassed by a Top-5 team. While Georgia certainly didn’t bring its A-effort against Tennessee, the Vols made the defending SEC champions work.
It didn’t come easy all the time for the Dawgs, so after last week’s self-destruction against UF, Pruitt had a decidedly different postgame tone in Athens.
"I think we made the right step in the right direction as far as building our program,” he said.
"To me, there are no moral victories. I’m not going to stand up here and be proud we lost. But if we will start to do it the way we did it this week, every single week, the other stuff will take care of itself.”
The Vols were down 17-0 at halftime, playing well defensively (Hello Darrel Taylor!) but not taking advantage of a couple turnover opportunities, including when Georgia tight end Issac Nauta got beat for a sack only to scoop up the fumble and run 30 yards into the end zone.
“That's a first for me," Pruitt said, shaking his head. "Been a lot of firsts this year.”
But unlike the past month, when Tennessee has Tennessee’d, the Vols didn’t blink. The defense kept playing hard, but had zero help offensively. Before halftime, the Vols had as many penalties trying to punt the football (3) as first downs and never crossed midfield.
When Georgia marched right down the field to open the third quarter, going up 24-0 with a patented, ‘This game is over drive.’ It appeared Tennessee’s hard-fought first-half would be for naught.
Instead, Pruitt’s team kept playing. They didn’t fold
The Vols, with a couple explosive plays, scored two consecutive touchdowns to make it a 24-12 game.
Suddenly, Sanford Stadium was quiet and Georgia fans were looking around like, ‘Huh?’
Pruitt wasn’t though.
He saw that same fight in his team during practice. During the week and they took it to the field. Earlier in the week, Tennessee’s first-year head coach said he would find out a lot about his team going on the road against the No. 2 school in the country.
He did.
“We’ve got fight in us, that we’re not going to quit, it kind of gets me excited,” Pruitt said, having to collect himself.
“I’m proud of them and the way they fought. It isn’t easy. That team in red today tried to change the way we fought. That’s the way they’re coached, that’s the way they play. They play the right way. Our guys kept fighting, which means we’re headed in the right direction and that excites me. That’s why I’m getting a little bit emotional.”
Tennessee still lost by nearly four touchdowns Saturday, and fans are tired of moral victories. But from a big picture prospective, there was progress shown Saturday night in Sanford Stadium. And for this team, right now, that’s saying something.
"It's in our Maxims: 'Don't let up, put on more steam,' cornerback Baylen Buchanan said.
"Even when the odds were against us, we just kept playing. I see that we're still fighting, but we've just got to clean up some mistakes that we had made. ... Keep fighting.”