It's been a whirlwind past month for Jeremy Pruitt, who was named Tennessee's coach on Dec. 7. He juggled that job and his role as Alabama's defensive coordinator until the Crimson Tide won the national championship. UT Sports
The twang in Jeremy Pruitt’s voice gives him away. He’s from the South.
Specifically, Pruitt is from Rainsville, Ala. In fact, he’s spent his entire life in southern states.
You can draw a diamond that stretches from Knoxville to the north, Livingston, Ala., to the west, Tallahassee, Fla., to the south and Athens, Ga., to the east and encapsulate Pruitt’s entire life and coaching career.
Including Pruitt, nine of Tennessee’s 11 coaches are natives of southern states. Alabama leads the way, with three. No member of the coaching staff, by the way, is from Tennessee.
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Including the Tennessee coaches’ hometowns, alma maters and all previous coaching stops, no coach has ever been north of Fort Collins, Colo., except tight ends coach Brian Niedermeyer, who is from King Salmon, Alaska.
What’s the footprint mean?
The geographic footprint of a coaching staff isn’t the end all, be all for recruiting. Even if a coach has never lived or worked in Texas, Florida, Georgia or California, if he’s been in college football for any length of time, he’s likely spent time recruiting those states, which have too much talent to avoid.
However, geographic ties matter to some extent.
Consider, for example, how the Vols got quarterback Jarrett Guarantano, who is from Lodi, N.J.
Guarantano’s dad, James, played for Rutgers while Butch Jones was a graduate assistant there. That connection helped Tennessee beat out Rutgers and Ohio State for Guarantano. When he joined the roster in 2016, it marked the first time UT had a player on its roster from New Jersey since 2012.
After two quarterbacks who pledged to Tennessee’s 2018 class while Jones was the coach decommitted in December, the Vols got quarterback JT Shrout to flip his commitment from California to Tennessee and sign on Dec. 20.
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Tyson Helton, Tennessee’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, was responsible for flipping Shrout. Helton was the quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator the past two seasons at Southern California, just down the road from where Shrout played at Hart High School in Santa Clarita, Calif.
Footprint matters.
If the coaching staff’s geographical footprint offers an indication of where Tennessee will focus its out-of-state recruiting offers, then expect the Vols to have a strong presence in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida.
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Eight of Tennessee’s 11 coaches, including Pruitt, are from, played in and/or have coached in Alabama. Six of the 11 have ties to Florida. Five have ties to Georgia, and four have ties to Mississippi.
Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt has been hired as the next coach at Tennessee. Wochit
The outliers
Vols cornerbacks coach Terry Fair is an outlier. He is the only member of the coaching staff who is not from, did not play for and has not coached for a school in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi or Florida.
Fair played at Tennessee in the 1990s and was a defensive quality control assistant for the Vols from 2013-14. But he’s a Phoenix native who was a defensive backs coach in his home state at Phoenix College and Mesa Community College. He returns to Tennessee from Colorado State, where he was the Rams’ cornerbacks coach from 2015-17.
CSU coach Mike Bobo discusses departure of assistants Will Friend and Terry Fair. Kelly Lyell
Offensive line coach Will Friend, who also coached at Colorado State, Fair and the Alaska native Niedermeyer are Tennessee’s only coaches with ties north of the 40th parallel, the longitudinal line that forms the border between Kansas and Nebraska.
Such outliers are important. They prevent a staff with ties to only one region. The Vols’ staff has no geographic ties to what the U.S. Census Bureau considers the Northeast region. It has few ties to the Midwest.
Although Niedermeyer traveled farthest to get to this coaching staff — Knoxville is more than 3,500 miles from his Alaskan hometown — Helton is probably the most extensively traveled member of the staff.
He was born in Gainesville, Fla., while his father was a coach at Florida. He played in college at Houston, making him one of three UT coaches with a connection to Texas. His coaching career took him from Hawaii to Memphis to Alabama-Birmingham to Cincinnati to Western Kentucky to USC and, finally, to Tennessee. Compare that to defensive coordinator Kevin Sherrer, whose life and career had covered only Alabama and Georgia before his move to Tennessee.
Blake Toppmeyer, John Adams and Mike Wilson on Pruitt's press conference on Wednesday, January 10, 2018.
Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, hired as Tennessee’s coach in December, discusses the challenge of juggling two jobs. Blake Toppmeyer/News Sentinel
Tennessee reporters Blake Toppmeyer and Mike Wilson discuss the Vols' recruiting class heading into the early signing period Blake Toppmeyer and Mike Wilson/News Sentinel
Coffee County senior Alontae Taylor signed with Tennessee on the last day of the early signing period. Tom Kreager
Gibbs' Ollie Lane signed with the Vols on Early Signing Day Dec. 20, 2017 Diana Nearhos/News Sentinel
Ensworth's Tanner Antonutti talks about why he signed with Tennessee. Tom Kreager / USA Today Network - Tennessee
See why Nashville Christian's Brant Lawless is signing with Tennessee. Tom Kreager
Jerome Carvin to Tennessee By John Varlas/The Commercial Appeal
Keaton Jones, whose bullying video has gone viral, visited with UT Athletics Director Phil Fulmer and members of the Vols football team on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017. Submitted/ University of Tennessee.
Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt was introduced during a timeout at the Vols basketball game on Saturday Mike Wilson/News Sentinel
Watch a time lapse of University of Tennessee sophomore Kate Luffman painting The Rock to welcome UT Vols new coach Jeremy Pruitt. Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel
University of Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt speaks about who he sees as the Vols' opponents during his introduction ceremony in the Neyland Stadium Peyton Manning Locker Room Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017.
The Tennessee coaching search has gone through a tumultuous week. Angela Gosnell/News Sentinel
Tennessee has named former head football coach Phil Fulmer as the athletics director. Wochit
John Currie is out as the Tennessee athletic director after eight months on the job and one chaotic week of a football coaching search, according to media reports. Angela Gosnell/News Sentinel
Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt has been hired as the next coach at Tennessee. Wochit
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