Plenty at stake Saturday for Pruitt, Tennessee's postseason chances
Nostalgia has supplanted national implications in the Tennessee-Florida rivalry, but make no mistake, Saturday’s showdown between the two downtrodden SEC East foes still carries plenty of stakes.
While the leaves have barely started changing in Knoxville, the 7 p.m. tilt in Neyland Stadium will determine the narrative of Tennessee’s 2018 season.
So are the Vols ready for the Gators?
“I don’t know that we have a choice,” head coach Jeremy Pruitt said, bluntly.
True, but they better be.
With two proud programs sharing plenty of current common threads — breaking in new coaches after 4-win seasons, long losing streaks to Power 5 teams and a loss already on the 2018 resume — Saturday’s Bottom-Feeder Bowl will be a Year 1 pivot point for the Vols.
There’s recruiting implications and the fact Pruitt would beat a guy who former Tennessee AD John Currie originally wanted to hire for his job, but mainly, Tennessee’s first-year head coach has a prime opportunity to build real equity with a fan base starved for actual evidence of optimism for the future.
Win Saturday, and no matter what happens during a brutal October, Pruitt will have done something no Tennessee coach has accomplished since his esteemed boss Phillip Fulmer: Beat the hated Florida Gators as a first-year head coach.
That’s goodwill you can’t buy in Tennessee, and although the Vols certainly won’t be guaranteed a postseason appearance, a victory gives them much better chance of actually playing a football game around Christmas.
But lose? Well, those bowl aspirations become increasingly dicey and an upcoming gauntlet against three Top 10 teams and a road trip to South Carolina will have Tennessee fans wishing they had one of those neutralizer’s from Men in Black to forget a painful six weeks.
That’s how Year 1 becomes Year 0.
“This game means everything to me,” Vols center and Nashville native Ryan Johnson said.
“It’s huge. I know it means a lot of Vol Nation. I’m really excited.”
Tennessee has lost 12 of 13 games against Florida, including last year’s gut-wrenching walk-off loss on a Feleipe Franks 63-yard heave. Safety Micah Abernathy said he’s rewatched the haunting play countless times, while Johnson indicted the team is still sour about the devastating defeat. The 2017 season went into a tailspin after the loss in Gainesville, and the Vols have no interest in another fall full of forlorn. They're hungry for payback.
“We’ve left that taste (linger) in our mouth,” Johnson said.
“And I think that’s kept us motivated this year, especially for this game. And I think we’re going to be prepared for this game, and I think we’re going to work hard. We’re going to go out there and play our hearts out.”
Yes, the Tennessee-Florida game has lost its luster, but Saturday can be the start of something special for Pruitt & Co. The ’98 national championship team will be in town and more than 100,000 screaming fans clad in orange and white want a reason to hope.
A win over a very beatable Gators team would bring just that.
"I can remember growing up and watching the games, it was really kind of the first marquee SEC game of the year, so it kind of, who was going to win the East, if you lost that game, you could almost be out of the running. It was a great rivalry," Pruitt said.
"Our goal is play to a standard that when everybody plays Tennessee, that's the one game that they mark on their schedule. Back in January or February, 'Hey, we've got to play at our best.' We've got a long ways to go as a program to get to where people start doing that again."
Saturday night seems like a great opportunity to start.