KNOXVILLE - Seeing the 2019 season spiraling in the wrong direction, Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt wasn't going to let that happen.
Sitting in the visitors' locker room after the Volunteers' 34-3 loss to Florida on Sept. 21, Pruitt told the players that what he'd seen from the team wasn't good enough. Even for a season with modest hopes, the year had started as poorly as possible, with shocking losses caused by lackluster play on both sides of the ball, and the 31-point loss to the Gators was anemic.
So Pruitt had a meeting in the locker room with the team. Once the Vols got back to Knoxville, there was another meeting.
And it wasn't a players-led meeting. It wasn't a coaches-led meeting.
It was led by one person - Pruitt.
The first meeting was blunt - "I wasn't happy with the way we played that day" - while the tenor of the latter message was slightly softer: "We're better than what we we're showing."
Since then, the team has gotten the message, going 5-2 with losses only to Georgia and Alabama, national top-five teams. The Vols' 24-20 win at Missouri on Saturday pushed Tennessee to six for the season and bowl eligibility for the first time since 2016.
To start working their way back into the upper echelon of the Southeastern Conference, the Vols were going to have to gain wins against the middle of the SEC, something they've struggled to do in recent seasons. But in 2019 Tennessee is 4-0 against Mississippi State, South Carolina, Kentucky and Missouri.
And it all started with the meeting.
"I would say, you know, that whole meeting was it was, you know, 'If you're here, and you're really going to be here with us, you're going to promise to give your all for the rest of these games,'" senior safety Nigel Warrior said. "It was, 'Are y'all going to really turn it around? Are you going to play for your brother?' Everybody agreed. And as you can see, we changed it around. We came closer. We became one.
"Really, I'm just thankful for those guys, man. They're taking me out with a boom, and I can't complain about it."
Added junior quarterback Jarrett Guarantano: "It was embarrassing. I didn't perform the way I wanted to perform; the team didn't perform the way they wanted to perform. Coach Pruitt really called out the older guys and said we really needed to step up and make a decision, and the seniors have done an exceptional job of that.
"I'm really proud of that, and I'm just trying to give them the best senior year possible."
If there's been a poster boy for turning things around, it's been Guarantano. As the starting quarterback for the first four games, nobody was maligned more for the team's lack of success than the 6-foot-4, 213-pounder. He lost his job as the starter after that Florida loss, a position he didn't fully recapture until Saturday. But he played in every game, putting together solid performances in each victory, the last three of which he's played with a cast on his left (non-throwing) hand after breaking a bone against South Carolina on Oct. 26.
With his recent contributions - as well as those of so many others - the Vols enter the regular-season finale with the same record (5-1) over their last six games as Georgia, with Alabama being the lone blemish on the resume during the recent run.
"Going back to the meeting, (it was about) being there for one another," he said. "And being there for one another goes back to just being more into your plays, knowing more, having more awareness on the field, talking, having more communication. That's what he laid out for us. We just listened, really."
It appears to be a smart decision.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.