KNOXVILLE - Jeremy Pruitt stayed mum Wednesday on injury news, offering a wry smile when asked about the statuses of three starters for Tennessee's football game against top-ranked Alabama on Saturday.
"I'm not going to give Alabama exactly who is going to be able to play and who is not," the first-year Volunteers coach said. "All those guys are working hard to get ready to play. I think they've already got enough advantages on us."
Such is Pruitt's approach as he prepares to face the program he coached for and played for - and cheered for while growing up in northeast Alabama.
"I think everybody that's in the business that we're in are competitors," Pruitt said.
There will be players Pruitt coached and coaches he worked with on the opposing sideline at Neyland Stadium on Saturday afternoon as the Vols (3-3, 1-2 Southeastern Conference) welcome the Crimson Tide (7-0, 4-0). The opponent will be wearing the jerseys he dreamed of wearing as a kid and did wear as a defensive back in 1995 and 1996.
The opposing head coach - Nick Saban - will be the man who gave him his start in college football in 2007.
But Pruitt will, above all, be a competitor, he said Wednesday when pushed on how this week may differ from his first six game weeks as a head coach.
"We're playing a football game, and that's what we do," Pruitt said. "That's what we get paid to do and coach to do, so obviously we're going to give our all to be at our best. The way I think all of us are wired, it wouldn't matter if we were pitching quarters or playing cards or whatever, we'd be trying to beat each other."
Pruitt said Saban did him "a tremendous favor" by hiring him to work on the Alabama support staff 11 years ago. Pruitt spent three seasons working with the strength and conditioning program, helping monitor the football team's academic progress and sitting in on defensive meetings. It paid off when he earned a role as defensive backs coach in 2010, a position he held for three seasons.
Pruitt then rose through the ranks as a defensive coordinator at Florida State, Georgia and back at Alabama before becoming a head coach for the first time last December.
Saban lavished Pruitt with praise Wednesday, saying Tennessee will present a "challenging game" for Alabama and calling Pruitt "a really good football coach."
"The guy's a very bright football guy that has a lot of good experience, I think," Saban said on the SEC teleconference. "He's one of the best coaches we ever had on our staff around here, and I think it's reflected in how his team's improved this year."
Saban is 14-0 against his former assistants. No former Saban assistant has had to face Saban as a head coach the season after leaving his staff. Pruitt will be the first.
"Most of the time when you do get an opportunity like I have, you do call the folks that you've been associated with and ask for advice," Pruitt said. "It's kind of a unique circumstance of being at Tennessee and Coach Saban being at Alabama. I don't think it's fair to him for me to call and ask him questions. I think he would help me. I really believe he would.
"But we're competing against each other every single day in recruiting. It's one of the biggest rivalries out there. So I don't feel like I should put him in that situation, if that makes sense."
Pruitt then paused for a moment and pondered a hypothetical scenario.
"I mean, if he called me and asked what he could do to help his program, I'd second-guess before I tried to give him some help," Pruitt said. "I can assure you of that."
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.