Jeremy Pruitt will have completed his duties as Alabama’s defensive coordinator by Jan. 9 at the latest and will be able to turn his full attention to his new position as Tennessee’s head coach.
At the moment, his focus is on making sure that day doesn’t come a week earlier.
Pruitt and the Crimson Tide are in New Orleans preparing for Monday’s Sugar Bowl national semifinal against Clemson. The winner advances to the national championship game against Georgia or Oklahoma in Atlanta on Jan. 8.
“The first thing, I just want to say this: I’m excited about being the head football coach at Tennessee,” Pruitt told reporters Friday morning in New Orleans. “It’s a tremendous opportunity, a great university and I’m thankful to have it.
“But right now I’m working as a defensive coordinator at Alabama, and I’d like for these questions to be targeted toward this game and the players that are associated with this game.”
Pruitt helped cobble together a 14-player early signing class at Tennessee in less than two weeks between when he accepted the Volunteers’ job and the beginning of the Dec. 20-22 early signing period.
“When I was at Tennessee, I worked on getting ready for that class,” Pruitt said. “And it was easy going back to start focusing on getting ready to play Clemson. The recruiting part was over with on Wednesday (Dec. 20), the signing day.”
Junior college tight end Dominick Wood-Anderson chose Pruitt and the Vols over the Crimson Tide during the early signing period, but Pruitt said the process of rejoining coach Nick Saban’s staff for Sugar Bowl preparation was not difficult.
“No. I mean, working for Coach Saban, this is the eighth year I have worked with Coach Saban,” Pruitt said. “We have a tremendous staff in Tosh Lupoi, Karl Dunbar, Derrick Ansley. So we’re all not only – we work together. We’re all really close, very good friends. And we’ve done it for a while together, and it wasn’t really that hard.”
Alabama beat Clemson 45-40 in the national championship game at the end of the 2015 season, but the Tigers avenged that loss by topping the Crimson Tide 35-31 to win the title this past January. Both games were classics decided in the fourth quarter.
Now Pruitt has another chance to test his defensive mettle against the Tigers. If all goes well for him, he’ll then have one last game to coach with the Crimson Tide before joining the Vols.
“He has been ready to go and focused on winning the game,” Alabama defensive lineman Da’Ron Payne said. “We are all very excited for the opportunity he and his family have at the University of Tennessee.”
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.