CHARLOTTE, N.C. - For those who tend to overreact to such things, who insist on basing their entire opinion concerning the future of Tennessee football under new coach Jeremy Pruitt on a single game, the final score against West Virginia on Saturday was a wee bit worse than Las Vegas had projected.
Predicted to lose by 10.5 points, Tennessee instead fell by 26 as the 17th-ranked Mountaineers won 40-14.
For a coach who has built his considerable reputation on defense - as Pruitt long had as an assistant - losing his first- game as a head coach by that margin probably stung more than it might have if the Volunteers had lost by 7-6 or 10-7. Making matters worse, West Virginia amassed 541 total yards and 26 first downs in addition to all those points.
Noted Pruitt afterward, his voice rather unemotional but his words filled with frustration: "They played 60 minutes. We played 30."
In some ways, this rather defenseless defensive performance even had to call to mind the previous defensive coordinator the Vols lured away from Alabama. Some guy named Sal Sunseri.
Then again, this wasn't Troy that was averaging 9 yards a snap against the Vols. This was a West Virginia team that looks like that St. Louis Rams team that won Super Bowl XXIV against the Tennessee Titans after the 1999 season. You know the one: "The Greatest Show on Turf," even if this game was played on Mother Nature's grass.
In wide receivers Gary Jennings Jr. and David Sills, the Mountaineers have bona fide All-America candidates, especially because they also have a quarterback in former Florida Gator Will Grier who definitely looked the part of Heisman Trophy candidate against Tennessee.
As Pruitt said afterward of Grier: "He's really good."
Despite the final score and that yardage gap, the Vols did have their moments in this one, including one very loud one just before their first touchdown that may say all that's needed about what kind of coach Pruitt will be in the future and what personality his team eventually will exude.
With a little more than eight minutes left in the first half, the Vols reached the West Virginia 1-yard line for first-and-goal. Four downs to get 1 yard. Only the Big Orange still needed that 1 yard after three of those downs, which caused Pruitt to start yelling and pointing at his team, and presumably not with joy or praise.
Understand that Tennessee trailed 10-0. A field goal would not have been meaningless. The Mountaineers staging a goal-line stand could have been devastating.
In Pruitt's mind, though, electing to kick a field goal might have also been devastating, whether or not it delivered three points.
"If you can't get it in there from 1 yard out, it doesn't say a lot for you," Pruitt explained later.
So he ordered his young team to go for it. All or nothing. Vols starting quarterback Jarrett Guarantano rolled right, tossing the ball toward the back of the end zone to tight end Dominick Wood-Anderson. Touchdown.
"It's a pretty common play in practice," Wood-Anderson said.
Asked what it said about Pruitt, the player replied, "He's not going to play scared."
Added Pruitt: "We're not here to run a sprint. We're here to run a marathon. We're here to build a culture."
Or at least a different culture than the one attempted by Pruitt's predecessor, Butch Jones.
That doesn't mean the Vols are likely to scare too many teams this season. Not with Florida, Georgia, Auburn, Alabama and South Carolina all scheduled to play them in a span of six weeks, starting Sept. 22, when the team Grier formerly played for visits Neyland Stadium.
The Vols may not face a more explosive offensive team than West Virginia in the remaining 11 games, but they are all but certain to face far better defensive units. Beyond that, this is not a deep team and schedules such as the one Tennessee is facing tend to wear down your roster.
Still, there were plenty of positives, including a return to the classic uniforms - white helmets with the wide center stripe and orange power T, basic orange jerseys with clean, white numbers, all-white pants and black shoes - that the 1998 national champs wore. The Tennessee-supporting portion of the crowd of 66,793 was also loud and supportive and typically inspiring in its repeated belting out of "Rocky Top."
"We've got some things we can go back and build on," Pruitt said before adding, "Their team played better than our team today, and that's on me."
Actually, it's on him, his players and the former coaching staff who recruited most of these players.
Nothing Pruitt does will dramatically improve this team overnight. Or probably before November, when the best teams on their schedule will all be in the rearview mirror.
"I knew this would happen," he noted with refreshing candor concerning the beating his young defensive players experienced. "I also know that in October they'll be a lot better."
By November that improvement should show up on both the scoreboard and in the win column. Until then, however, the Big Orange Nation - at least when facing the big boys on the schedule - will have to be content with knowing its coach won't play scared and will accept responsibility when the other team plays better.
Whatever the results against the SEC's best over the next several weeks, that's a culture change much for the better.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.