KNOXVILLE — Phillip Fulmer had a good feeling about Jeremy Pruitt when the two sat down for the first time four-and-a-half months ago. Even after Fulmer hired Pruitt to be Tennessee’s next football coach, he still had his reservations.
“You never know for sure unless you’ve been around the person for a long period of time,” Fulmer said. “You just don’t know for sure. People can tell you one thing and do another, and that’s often the case.
“They say, ‘We’re going to bring these six people with us as assistant coaches’ and you think in the back of your mind, ‘If we get three of those that’d be really good.