KNOXVILLE - Ever since he was hired as football coach at the University of Tennessee two years ago, Jeremy Pruitt has been asking recruits to, in a sense, put blind faith in him and his staff being able to turn things around.
It hasn't always been easy. The Volunteers were coming off a 4-8 season when he arrived, went 5-7 in his debut campaign and were just 6-11 in his first 17 games in charge.
Pruitt implored recruits to stick with the program and be a part of the turnaround, though, and the result was a 2019 recruiting class that wound up No. 13 in the 247Sports.com composite rankings. A few of those prospects played early this season and even more played late, helping the Vols rebound from a 1-4 start by going 6-1 to finish the schedule and take a five-game winning streak into the Jan. 2 TaxSlayer Gator Bowl against Indiana (8-4).
Wednesday wasn't about the bowl game, though. It was about another group of players buying into Pruitt's vision - and 21 did as another early signing period for college football got started.
(Read more: Get to know the newest Tennessee Volunteers)
The players who signed with the Vols last December had a message earlier this week for recruits about to make the same decision: Trust it.
"You're going to work but have fun while you're doing it," said Tennessee left tackle Wanya Morris, a Freshman All-America selection. "If you want to come here, you're going to play and have a good time doing it. Come get the best of your three or four years here.
"We have an excellent coaching staff. You're going to have a great time, and they're going to develop you the best you can."
The Vols ended Wednesday with a recruiting class rated 15th in the country, with 12 players having a four-star rating. Of the 21 signees, five - four-star outside linebacker Tyler Baron, three-star quarterback Jimmy Holiday, four-star outside linebacker Morven Josepth, three-star defensive lineman Reginald "R.J." Perry and four-star running back Len'Neth Whitehead - put pen to pad without having previously committed to the program.
Sixteen remained solid to their commitments and signed, and some of those didn't waver even when the Vols looked lost during their poor start this season. Holiday was a one-time TCU commitment who flipped on Wednesday morning to join the Vols instead.
With Pruitt's vision clearly laid out, now it's up to his players - returning and incoming - to continue to develop and "have fun," as Morris said, while building up the program.
"I believe the guys in this class that have been committed back out before the season started, they knew why they wanted to come to Tennessee," Pruitt said. "They believed in the direction we were heading. They believe in our coaching staff, our vision, and they believed in the players that were here. They want to play with good players.
"We've got a chance to do something special here. Kind of like our team, our team really never wavered, they just kept going to work and tried to fix the mistakes we were making. We did that the last half of the year, and the guys stuck with us. I think it says a lot about them. It says a lot about their character, their makeup, which to me is almost as important - or it might be more important - than how big and how fast you are."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.