Former Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart left the Crimson Tide to take the head coaching job at Georgia and been incredibly successful in his brief time in Athens. The next former Alabama defensive coordinator to take an SEC head coaching job is Jeremy Pruitt at Tennessee. And former Alabama quarterback John Parker Wilson thinks Pruitt could become a big threat in the SEC.
Wilson, who was a Tide quarterback from 2005-2008, was on “The Roundtable” on WJOX 94.5 radio in Birmingham and talked about how Pruitt could build a monster in Knoxville.
“He scares me more at Tennessee than Kirby does at Georgia. Georgia is going to be good, but down the road, Jeremy scares me more than Kirby at Georgia,” Wilson said, as transcribed by Saturday Down South.
Wilson has a relationship with Pruitt going back to Hoover High School in Alabama, so he knows him personally. That’s part of the basis for his opinion.
“I think he’ll be wildly successful at Tennessee. I hope that he has enough success that he can come back and be the head coach at Alabama one day,” Wilson said on the show. “His ability to connect with people is something that I’ve never seen. Jeremy was a defensive back’s coach when I was at Hoover (High School). He wasn’t a coordinator, he was just a defensive back’s coach.
“The way he connects with people is unlike I’ve ever seen. He’s a great recruiter, that’s how he got his start and how he rose so fast thru Alabama then at Florida State. I think what he’s going to do at Tennessee, at a place like that, being the only show in town with Tennessee being the only big school in the state, he’s going to do well.”
Wilson is right. Tennessee could be a sleeping giant. They were a program of serious prominence during Phillip Fulmer’s head coaching tenure, but it’s been 10 years since they were a factor, and they became a laughing stock last year. Pruitt really could do some damage there if he gets it going, just as Wilson says.
