Former Tennessee Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt is back in the news due to ‘confusion and uncertainty’ about his ability to be hired
Former Tennessee Vols head football coach Jeremy Pruitt is still trying to get back into college football. Pruitt hasn’t coached at the collegiate level since getting fired by Tennessee in early 2021.
Earlier this offseason, it looked like former Tennessee Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt was on the verge of returning to college football.
But four months after winning a preliminary injunction that appeared to pave the way for Pruitt’s return, the former Tennessee coach is back to square one.
According to AL.com’s Mike Rodak, Pruitt is asking the court to dissolve the preliminary injunction he won because it’s created “confusion and uncertainty” about his ability to be hired.
Pruitt’s concern is the “possibility of NCAA retribution if and when the injunction is ultimately lifted.”
Essentially, no one wants to hire Pruitt because they aren’t sure if an NCAA appeal would be successful down the road. The injunction basically put Pruitt in a weird coaching purgatory where he’s simultaneously hirable and not hirable.
Pruitt hasn’t coached at the college level since getting fired by Tennessee in early 2021 due to a recruiting scandal that rocked the program.
Jeremy Pruitt should be allowed to coach in college
It’s truly absurd that Pruitt, one of the best defensive minds in the sport, isn’t allowed to coach due to a recruiting scandal that involved a measly $60,000 in impermissible benefits.
Sure, the scandal happened at a time when impermissible benefits were still a bad word in college football, but the rules changed shortly after Pruitt was fired. We now have players demanding millions in NIL money to sign with a school. $60,000 wouldn’t even get you a seat at the table with top recruits in 2026.
Yet Pruitt is being blacklisted because of a “scandal” that pales in comparison to some of the things we’ve seen go down over the years in college football.
Regardless of what you think of Pruitt and the job he did at Tennessee, he should unquestionably be allowed to coach in college football immediately.