The potential of Tennessee’s third staff under the guidance of head football coach Jeremy Pruitt was on display this past spring.
With the nation and the sports world reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Volunteers went on a recruiting binge that resulted in an ascension to No. 2 in the 247Sports.com rankings behind Ohio State. The top-50 national tandem of weakside defensive end Dylan Brooks of Roanoke, Alabama, and outside linebacker Terrence Lewis of Miami ignited the surge in late April, but Pruitt believes his assistants have been thriving under the radar as well.
“I feel like our staff has really done an outstanding job handling this whole pandemic,” Pruitt said Monday night after Tennessee’s opening preseason workout. “The No. 1 priority with us has been our relationships with our players. These guys went home in the middle of March and didn’t get back until June 8, and not all of them got back on June 8. Some of them got back in July.
“Going from seeing these guys every single day to not being able to see them has been tough. Luckily, with Zoom and FaceTime, we tried to have as many face-to-face meetings with our players as we possibly could to be there for them.”
The Vols, incidentally, are currently sixth in the national recruiting rankings behind Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, LSU and Oregon.