There isn’t a successful high school football coach in Mobile or Baldwin County who doesn’t personally know Jeremy Pruitt.
The new Tennessee head coach was recruiting this area when he was on Nick Saban’s staff the first time. He continued those recruiting duties through coaching stints at Florida State, Georgia and back at Alabama again.
So there was no reason to believe he would forget his roots when he got his first head coaching job. Now we know he certainly hasn’t.
Just this week Pruitt and his new staff extended scholarship offers to 10 underclassmen from this area.
That list includes St. Paul’s running backs Jordan Ingram and A.J. Finley, McGill-Toolen noseguard Darius Cox, Vigor defensive end Desmond Little, receivers Keyshawn Woodyard and Edwin White from UMS-Wright, Kris Abrams-Draine from Spanish Fort and Eric Poellnitz from Mobile Christian, and Daphne cornerback Christian Williams. He even offered a freshman, Mobile Christian linebacker Deontae Lawson.
There’s no way to know if even one of these talented young player with end up in Knoxville. But what is clear is that Pruitt is taking a page from the book of Nick Saban, who made a similar commitment to the Mobile area when he arrived in Tuscaloosa. You can’t blame Pruitt for trying to duplicate the results the plan yielded for Saban.
For Threaded Fasteners, I’m Randy Kennedy with Nuts and Bolts of the Game.