Last year, under Butch Jones and his staff, the Vols let a number of leads slip through their fingers as they finished the season 4-8 and 0-8 in SEC play. They simply didn't finish games they should have won.
With Jeremy Pruitt now in charge in Knoxville, there's a new energy and buzz around the program. As he shared with new Vols during their move in, there is one overwhelming goal for them and the rest of the team over the summer if they're going to compete as Pruitt and his staff expect them to in the SEC.
"Goals for the summer - We have got to learn to strain. Learn to strain."
"Now what is strain? I ain't talking about all these facial gestures and all that, I'm talking about your max potential. We have got to learn to do that and do it all the time."
"You've got to do it when I'm not looking. You've got to do it when coach Fitz isn't looking. You've got to do it when your teammates aren't looking. It has got to become a habit. We want to learn how to strain because I'm going to tell you something, most people don't know how. Most teams don't know how. We are going to strain our ability in everything that we do."
"What's that going to teach us? It's going to teach us to learn how to finish, because this football team right here is going to be finishers."
See the full new player move in below, as well as more from Pruitt's talk with them in the video.
https://youtu.be/IsaqTE1Wdvk?t=215