The question came some 17 minutes into the University of Tennessee’s 28-minute press conference to address the Monday firing of Jeremy Pruitt as the Vols’ football coach.
“When you look back at the last three years,” the question began to the threesome of retiring athletic director Phillip Fulmer, UT chancellor Donde Plowman and school president Randy Boyd, “how do you think Jeremy Pruitt’s tenure is going to be remembered?”
Wisely handing it off to the man who hired Pruitt, Boyd and Plowman heard Fulmer reply, “We found the program in quite a mess at the time.”
And just exactly how is that different from where it is today?
(READ MORE: On and off the field, UT’s Jeremy Pruitt era ends in disgrace)