Vols football coach Jeremy Pruitt: 'We've got to believe in each other'

First-year Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt want his players to work on building trust this summer, before the challenges of preseason practices and the season arrive.
First-year Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt want his players to work on building trust this summer, before the challenges of preseason practices and the season arrive.

KNOXVILLE - As Jeremy Pruitt surveys the looming challenges of his first season as Tennessee's football coach, he is keeping his top priority simple this summer.

"The most important thing is we've got to create a team," Pruitt said Wednesday on Erik Ainge's radio show in Knoxville.

The Volunteers start preseason camp in less than two months and will open the season Sept. 4 against West Virginia in Charlotte, North Carolina. During a Wednesday appearance on "The Swain Event," Pruitt estimated Tennessee will have 27 to 30 players participating in preseason camp who were not with the team during its 15 spring practices.

photo First-year Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt want his players to work on building trust this summer, before the challenges of preseason practices and the season arrive.

So while Pruitt said Wednesday he likes the players on his team and believes they are working hard, he also sees "lots of unknowns."

"It's going to be a challenge for the coaching staff and the players to kind of create a team atmosphere," Pruitt said on "The Swain Event."

That's one reason he launched a weekly series on team building as part of the eight hours per week the coaching staff is allowed to spend with players during eight weeks of summer school. Defensive coordinator Kevin Sherrer led a session this week and showed footage of Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett praising former Tennessee tight end Jason Witten's team-first mentality during Witten's recent retirement announcement.

"What we've got to do from this point forward, is we've got to do everything we can to pull together and become the team that we can be," Sherrer tells Tennessee's football team in footage of the meeting released by the athletic department.

Pruitt has identified five types of players on his roster: returning players who participated in spring practices, returning players who did not participate in spring practices, junior college transfers, graduate transfers and true freshmen.

The path from an 0-8 Southeastern Conference record in 2017 to respectability under a first-time head coach who brought in an entirely new staff of assistants begins with learning everyone's name.

"A lot of guys, when you sit in a room, they don't know each other," Pruitt said on "The Erik Ainge Show." "We've got to get to know each other. We've got to be able to call upon each other. We've got to believe in each other. It's going to be important that we create a team, a one-ness. I feel like if we can do that, that will help us tremendously this fall."

Another avenue for summer team bonding will come through seven-on-seven passing drills. Coaches are not allowed to lead or organize such activities, but Tennessee's players are expected to participate.

Last offseason was the first under former Vols coach Butch Jones in which he allowed players to participate in the drills. Previously, Jones cited the potential for injuries as a reason why players were discouraged from taking part.

Pruitt told "The Swain Event" that "we're not concerned about getting hurt."

"Everybody, I think, that wants to develop as a football player, there's only one way you can do it," Pruitt said. "That's to go out there and work the skill set that it takes for you to have success."

Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.

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