KNOXVILLE – Never let it be said that new Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt wasn’t formally warned about the Big Orange Nation’s expectation level for outsized success.
Even before Tennessee athletic director Phillip Fulmer officially introduced him as the 26th head coach in Volunteers history, first-year chancellor Beverly Davenport reminded Pruitt of a conversation the two of them shared during the interview process.
“Jeremy told me, ‘Make no bones about it, I expect to win championships,'” Davenport recalled. “I replied, ‘Make no bones about it, Tennessee expects you to.'”
So much for lowering expectations following the worst season in the school’s 121 years of football. Not that Pruitt exactly shied away from the chancellor’s bold remarks.
The man who also will remain Alabama’s defensive coordinator for as long as the Crimson Tide stay alive in the four-team national playoff said he expects his Vols program pretty quickly to be a “big, fast, physical, dominating, aggressive, relentless football team that nobody in the SEC wants to play.”