COLUMBIA, Mo. — Once the punchline of the Southeastern Conference, the Tennessee Volunteers are now laughing at reports of their demise. Their last head-coaching hire exposed a dysfunctional athletics department that came undone in the process and kept a once-elite program in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
A 1-4 start to the 2019 season under second-year coach Jeremy Pruitt didn’t exactly inspire confidence that the new regime had any solutions.
Suddenly, though, the Vols figured out one of college football’s secrets to success, even in an elite conference: Beat the bad teams.
After a loss to Alabama dropped the Vols to 2-5 on Oct.