After Harrison Bailey got his first career start at quarterback for Tennessee, and incumbent Jarret Guarantano stood on the sidelines, dressed and apparently available but not playing in a game for the first time in Jeremy Pruitt's bumpy three years on Rocky Top, Pruitt nonetheless told reporters to stop asking him about positional competitions going forward.
“Every week, OK, so y'all won't ever have to ask me this again, OK, every week we go out there and we see, alright, who competes in practice, alright, who does the best job that we feel like (positively) affects the guys around them,” Pruitt said in a terse postgame press conference. “Alright? And we will do that as long as I'm the head football coach here, at every position.
“So you don't have to ask me ever, ever, ever again.”
The Vols had been dealing with COVID-19 protocols that wiped a number of players from their available roster, and Pruitt said Guarantano had not practiced “in 13 days.”
Bailey's a former four-star prospect in his first season in the program, and the Marietta, Georgia, product turned in a serviceable performance Saturday in the Vols' 31-19 loss to Florida. Bailey hit on 14 of 21 tosses for 111 yards and a score; he absorbed five of the six sacks Tennessee's offensive line surrendered.
And speaking of six, the Vols now have lost six-straight games by double figures – the worst such losing streak in a program that dates back to its inaugural season in 1891.
It's a program struggling for an identity and already losing multiple assistant coaches, which has been the most consistent element of Pruitt's tenure at Tennessee.
After less than one year in Knoxville and following a very strong run as Notre Dame's offensive coordinator, Chip Long is leaving to become the offensive coordinator at Tulane for Willie Fritz. He's been an offensive analyst on the Vols' current staff but was expected to have a full-time assistant coaching position if he stayed on Rocky Top.
Pruitt then midseason fired defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh, even as Brumbaugh had more than $800,000 in salary that remained on his two-year pact with UT and as the school's athletics department had, like many across collegiate athletics, worked toward department-wide pay-cuts and budget reductions.
Sources have indicated that a number of other Vols' assistants could have potential opportunities at other programs in college football. Kentucky is seeking three offensive assistants while new South Carolina coach Shane Beamer, still finalizing the finishing details to sign his contract with the Gamecocks.
Since Pruitt took over in Knoxville, he has lost three members of his original staff, four on-field assistant coaches from the 2019 season, as well as his strength coach and his director of player personnel, and now both Brumbaugh and Long from his '20 staff.