This is just incredible ($$).
Since Tennessee fired Jeremy Pruitt, a host of players have left. Dating back to the preseason, Tennessee has lost a total of 30 players who could or should still be on the 2021 roster. That includes the departures of 23 scholarship players, highlighted by the team’s two leading rushers, leader in sacks and leading tackler, who’s still in the transfer portal.
And that’s before any NCAA sanctions kick in. Remember, if there’s a multi-year postseason ban included in those, that gives UT’s upperclassmen a license to jump ship without having to sit out a year.
As Ubben notes, the Vols are going to be playing the 2021 season with less than a full 85-scholarship deck. The only question is how far less. At least they’ve spent a lot of money to get there.
Get The Picture 
We’ve never seen a former big-time football program give itself the death penalty before.
And no, it’s not sad, it’s still freaking hilarious! 😂🤣😂
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It’s a gift that keeps on giving: pulled off by two hillbilly dipshits who run their mouth too much…with players and coaches who left Athens to sign up for it…with all of this even after getting hammered by Georgia State during the ignominious Pruitt tenure…which, say, that reminds me…they cheated this much and were still frigging terrible along the way.
A clown show of epic proportions, truly.
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Can’t resist
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Andy Staples actually had a pretty good suggestion yesterday that UT should go ahead and self-impose a ban of like 10 scholarships a year for the next 2-3 years. They’re gonna be below that anyway, might as well get credit for it in the punishment department.
No different than teams who all of a sudden decide to self-impose a postseason ban in basketball, once it’s clear they weren’t gonna make the NCAA tourney anyway.
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Will the last one to leave, please turn out the lights…
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…turn off the lanterns. FIFY
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I thought hiring White was a good move and maybe long term it will be. But what I’ve seen so far, it appears that the Vols are in for a very long haul before they turn this ship around. That program is decimated and brought in a guy that inherited a undefeated team and watched his record lose more games for three consecutive years.
I mean, who knows. Maybe one bad year and one year probation and they can rebuild through the portal and convince some talent to come to Knoxville.
But they are in bad shape…
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I thought it was a good hire too, but it will probably take them at least 5 years before they are relevant again…..and they haven’t been relevant “for long time now”.
Pretty sure the fan base and school officials/admin. won’t be patient for 5 years….both the AD and coach/staff will be gone. Same as before, they probably will never recover from this….the Albert Means curse.
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If what they had previously said (justifying canning Pruitt for cause) is true, it will be a lot more than 1 year probation (guess I should say should be. After all, it’s the NCAA we are talking about…).
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The buttchuggers deserve the death penalty but I know they won’t get it. Too much money involved to shut it down completely.
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They may wish for a death penalty. They are about to be worse than a Div 2 school with SEC schedule.
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If baylor football didn’t sniff the big one, big urnge cuntry won’t get it either, “lack of institutional control” is the nail….
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Can’t help but remember how Phil Fulmer helped engineer John Currie’s ouster three years ago, only to swoop right in and snag Currie’s job, dripping with false humility about how he was just so honored to accept this sacred duty of returning Tennessee to glory . . . and ended up leaving the place in even worse shape than it was when he got there. Like the ServPro guy coming in to clean up your flooded basement and ending up burning your house down.
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Then also think about how Fulmer was interim coach, entrusted by Johnny Majors while Majors was recovering from major surgery, only to go behind Johnny’s back to boosters and administrators and poor mouth him to everyone he could.
Fulmer has a long history of back-stabbing, which makes this all the sweeter.
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Like pulling a string on a sweater – next thing you know the whole damn thing has unraveled. Fulmer has certainly gotten his payback for being terminated and has brought the house down around him.
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Dooley had 60- something scholarship players when he started there. Mark Richt’s worse team blew them out. I’m looking forward to 3-4 years of FCS competition from UTK.
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It’s beautiful is what it is.
I hope they don’t spend that $12,000,000 all in one place.
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I bet Kevin Mays never imagined he’d ever again be able to count on his fingers the number of scholarship teammates his boys have, and yet…
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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Oh my god, dude.
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The biggest shit show in history. And it’s not even over yet.
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Pruitt: “It should have been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin’ valuable again.”
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To quote a Vol fan I know. ” It just keeps getting gets worser and worser”.
Having lived through the Fulmer years I`m greatly enjoying UT football today.
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Could not agree more. We were in Athens during the Fulmer/Manning years… now my husband and I live in TN… enjoying every minute of this. ha
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Am I understanding this correctly? Tennessee has already 20 players leaving. They can only sign 25 in any given year. so where other schools can add 25 additional players, the vowels can only add net 5? Am I doing this right?
Oh man they are so screwed. That ut-vandy matchup gonna be a dogfight this year.
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Don’t dignify that game by calling it a “dogfight.”
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Money won’t buy happiness, but it will buy the brand of misery they should get used to.
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If you are a walk-on type who wants to play, and you can tolerate Creamsicle Orange….
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Actually, the more I think about it, substitute start for play above.
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They had to burn the Rocky Top to save it
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Pruitt seemed like a dimwitted jerk from the cheap seats.
I get why UT feel in love with him. Turns out that whole reaping and sowing thing happens sometimes.
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Definitely a high risk/high reward gambit.
If they come out without paying Pruitt’s and rest of the staff involved buyouts with only a few year scholarship reduction and bowl ban, they did all right.
On the other hand, as UGA has proven time and again, admitting to culpability with the NCAA usually leads to much worse sanctions than lawyering up.
I personally hope UT ends up having to pay Pruitt et al the majority of the buyout and gets hammered by the NCAA!
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If they were justified in canning Pruitt then the NCAA stuff will be severe. These morons should have fired him over the summer or at the start of the season. That way they would have dodged one more year of coach’s contracted pay and could have hired someone at Thanksgiving when the good coaches are available.
Instead they’re spending $12 million plus whatever Pruitt gets in order to hire Huepel. They’re morons.
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If they fired Pruitt earlier, all of the fan base would have been up in arms given they were on their “win streak.” They thought they were back in August up until the 2nd half between the hedges.
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I want to know what Harrison Bailey is going to do, especially after the claim his dad made.
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I’m not so sure Pruitt gets back in at Bama all that fast either.
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I thought Pruitt was headed to the Giants.
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That is being reported. Right before he was fired it was reported that he told friends if he was fired he’d just go back to Bama. I’m thinking that wasn’t an option.
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If Sankey wouldn’t allow Bama to hire Hugh Freeze, I can’t imagine he’d allow them or anyone else to hire Pruitt to be their DC or even a ballboy regardless if he wins a settlement and gets some of his money.
He’s likely to get a multi-year show cause, and his name will be mud in CFB circles for years.
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I heard it was the Jets. Orangeneck and the Big Apple – a match made in the depths of hell.
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The rumor was the Jets, they came out and refuted, and he signed with the Giants. Old news. Keep up, old man. 😉
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Sorry – still, Orangeneck and NYC, talk about oil and water.
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They aren’t fast, but they’re small.
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