Jeremy Pruitt’s resignation shows how well Kirby Smart did in Georgia

Jeremy Pruitt’s resignation shows how well Kirby Smart did in Georgia

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Jeremy Pruitt’s problems show how well Kirby Smart did in Georgia football

After three seasons, Jeremy Pruitt is no longer Tennessee’s head coach. The school dismissed him, with good reason, along with several other employees on Monday, as a result of an investigation into recruitment practices.

Related: Jeremy Pruitt fired, Tennessee football falls apart amid “shocking” shocking investigation of violations

When Pruitt was hired during the 2017 cycle, there was the thought that Tennessee was trying to do what Georgia had done with Kirby Smart. Pruitt was a successful defensive coordinator for Crimson Tide, as was Smart. Pruitt was also considered an excellent recruiter.

Both were hired to run the main SEC programs as their first major coaching job. Smart had already achieved success when Pruitt was hired, taking Georgia to the SEC title in his second season. He went on to guide the Bulldogs until the national championship game, before falling to Pruitt and Alabama.

Georgia won that season in 2017, relying on its racing and defense game. I was on the recruiting front because the Bulldogs signed class # 3 in 2017 and class # 1 in the 2018 recruiting cycle. It seemed like a decent idea to try to regain some glory for Tennessee.

But since Pruitt took office, he has failed to bring Tennessee to the same level of success that Georgia has had. Except for a six-game winning streak at the end of his second season, many of the problems that plagued Pruitt early in his tenure as head coach have done so all along.

In Pruitt’s three seasons, Tennessee turned 16-19. In games against Georgia, Florida and Alabama, the biggest games on Tennessee’s calendar each season, he went 0-6. All of these losses were double digits. This is not what you want.

In addition to Tennesse’s institutional weaknesses, there are some obvious reasons why Pruitt failed to meet the same Smart standard. On the one hand, Smart went into a much better program than Pruitt did with the volunteers. Tennessee won just four games before Pruitt’s arrival. Georgia won 10.

Pruitt never remotely recruited close to the same level as Smart. Smart’s first three complete classes – 2017, 2018 and 2019 – finished 3, 1 and 2 in the 247Sports Composite rankings. Pruitt finished 13th in 2019, 10th in 2020 and ranked 15th in 2021 before his resignation.

This is a significant gap between what Smart had to work on and what Pruitt did in terms of building a program.

Pruitt also never had stability in the position of defender. Jarrett Guarantono has always been around, but he only started all games for Tennessee in 2018, Pruitt’s first season at the helm. Even when the Volunteers seemed to land his future quarterback in 2020 at Harrison Bailey, he struggled to find consistent playing time last season.

Compare that to what Smart did in Georgia. He started Jacob Eason for everyone except one game in 2016. When Eason got hurt to start the 2017 season, Smart turned to Jake Fromm. He started all games for Georgia in the next three seasons, even with talented options like Eason and Justin Fields behind him.

Smart managed a consistent play from the position of defender, even though it was not always great. Pruitt brought offensive coordinator Jim Chaney, no less, from Georgia, but the musical chairs in the quarterback continued.

Despite Pruitt’s success as a defensive coordinator, his Tennessee defenses were unable to replicate what Smart did in Georgia. Volunteers finished in the top 25 in yards per play allowed only once in Pruitt’s three seasons. Last year, the Volunteers regressed to finish in 76th place in the country in that period. Pruitt’s tactics were not good enough to overcome the talent gap he faced in Tennessee.

Smart was also not losing control in the same way as Pruitt. In Smart’s first five seasons as a Georgia coach, he had seven double-digit losses. Pruitt was seven only in 2020, to keep up with the nine he acquired in the first two years of his term.

Smart has not been perfect in Georgia’s work, as he is also 0-3 against Alabama and Nick Saban. Smart’s attack has struggled to keep up with some of the sport’s other elite programs. But he at least showed some adaptability in bringing Todd Monken before the 2020 season. There is also the whole Fields saga, although that is a story for another day.

Related: 3 burning football issues from Georgia; Kirby Smart’s approach to change

If there is a marked difference in the pre-training days for Pruitt and Smart, it is how the mandate of the first in Georgia exploded to end the 2015 season. Although Pruitt has greatly improved Georgia’s defense in the past two years under Mark’s command Richt, he created a series of problems behind the scenes. So much so that he was not a candidate to join the Smart team when he finally replaced Richt.

Smart never dealt with that level of drama in his time in Alabama. Perhaps that should be revealing.

Tennessee will now have to sign his fifth head coach contract since the Volunteers last won SEC East in 2007. Georgia won the division five times during the same period, with Smart taking the final three.

As frustrating as it was part of Smart’s time as the era of Georgia’s head coach, just look at the latent confusion that is Tennessee’s program at the moment to see how things could get worse.

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