Aaron Murray isn’t a believer in Jeremy Pruitt.
Murray, the former Georgia quarterback who is now an analyst with the CBS Sports Network, offered a blistering critique of Tennessee’s first-year coach during an interview Tuesday on ESPN’s 102.5 The Game.
“I don’t know if his personality is fit to be a head coach. I don’t,” Murray told the radio station. “As a head coach, there’s so many things that go into it. It’s not just going out there and coaching. You have to deal with front office. You’ve got to go talk with the president of the university. You have to deal with boosters. You have to deal with the offense, the defense. It’s not just going in there and dealing with the kids and scheming up. There’s a lot that goes into it.
“I don’t think he’s the right guy to kind of be the CEO of a corporation. He’s really good managing just a defense and being a defensive coordinator. He needs to prove to me that he can handle the whole ship. For right now, I don’t think he can. We’ll see what happens this year. I don’t think it helps that he doesn’t have a lot of talent at Tennessee.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement there.
Now it’s true that their times didn’t overlap in Athens. But it’s hard to imagine that Murray didn’t hear from his former teammates and coaches about developments from 2014 and 2015. (Or, for that matter, read the paper and watch the Belk Bowl presser.)
“When he was at Georgia, the way he acted, the way he treated Coach Richt I thought was poor,” Murray told 102.5 The Game. “He wasn’t as respectful as I thought a defensive coordinator should be to a head coach. That’s my thing, with authority.
“When he’s dealing with the athletic director, when he’s dealing with the president, when he’s dealing with a booster who has given millions of dollars, you can’t go tell him to screw off. You have to take the meeting. You have to sit with them. Yeah, I know you want to be game planning and getting ready for the game, but you’re a head coach now. You have to do these other things.”
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: there’s one helluva book to be written about the twilight of the Mark Richt era in Athens.
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UPDATE: Jeremy responds.
“Probably” is doing some heavy lifting there.
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UPDATE #2: Ooh, it’s lit.
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UPDATE #3: David Pollack weighed in, too.
“To address Aaron’s (Murray) comment — because I think it needs to be addressed a little bit — the stories that I have heard and some of y’all have heard that came out of Athens – that are true, (from) coaches that were on the staff, some of the things Jeremy Pruitt did to Mark Richt, some coaches would tell you are the most disrespectful, most crazy things they heard,” Pollack said on the set of “SEC Now.”
“So, I’ll be curious to watch Jeremy Pruitt as he evolves with this relationship with Phillip Fulmer because Jeremy Pruitt did a good job when he was with Nick Saban — because he knew where he stood. He did a good job with Jimbo Fisher — they let you know where you stand. The hierarchy was very clear. How does he evolve as a head coach?
“He put on a good show (at the main podium at SEC Media Days), he definitely showed you what he has. I want to see if he continues to treat people in the correct manner, if he respects authority, because to be honest, the stories we’ve heard — we’ve all heard the same stories, it was pretty bad. It was disrespectful, so that’s what I’m interested to see.”
Based on things I’ve heard, I’d disagree a little with his assessment of Pruitt’s time at FSU, but, still…
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UPDATE #4: Richt sends regards.
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