Jeremy Pruitt Discusses Vols Players Only Meeting

The Tennessee Volunteers Football Team held a players only meeting, and Jeremy Pruitt discussed what it means.

On Monday, Jeremy Pruitt said about Tennessee's leadership, "I felt like all along we've had good leadership. We've had good practices. We've had good energy. If we take care of the football and create more turnovers, we'll be a much better football team. Some of the circumstances some of the guys have had, especially the younger guys, they couldn't control that. I think our guys have worked really hard. I see the guys in the office all the time now. Everywhere I've coached, I'm used to players being in the office constantly. The first year we had to drag them up here. Now we have kids up here all the time studying and trying to be the best player they can possibly be."

Pruitt has noted about Henry To'o To'o and others taking it upon themselves to be at the complex at all hours. However, it is not something that appears to happen across the board. 

According to sophomore linebacker Quavaris Crouch, the conservation has continued to grow among players. Last week, Crouch said, "we've been talking. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that everything has been good, but we've been talking. We are players, and we are going to have our opinions but the great leaders on our team  and people who see things the right way are going to say 'listen man, we know that all this is going on, but we have to rally together, and go finish the season strong.' That's what we are going to do. Just being positive about everything because it's not the end of the world and we are getting better and better."

Now, it appears that conversation has grown and stemmed into a players only meeting. Pruitt was asked about this meeting and the culture changing on Wednesday night, and he said, "I don’t know as much about culture, I think the big thing is – and it wasn’t initiated by the coaching staff, we have our own meetings and stuff with the players – just creating the right habits. There are certain individuals on our team that were limited for certain reasons over the course of the last six to eight weeks. Just getting everyone to play at a higher level all the time. If you look, there’s been times this year on both sides of the ball that we’ve done that, but we’ve been very inconsistent in all three phases. To sustain, be productive and win games in this league, you have to do it at a high level all the time and it’s based on the habits you create. To me, that’s been the focus of our entire team really since I’ve been here. It’s one thing to talk about it, it’s another thing to do it on a daily basis. It’s something that we’ve really tried to take one day at a time and focus on it so we can get a product that shows up on Saturdays and we can play complete games."

Tennessee will start Jarrett Guarantano on Saturday against Arkansas in matchup that is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff. The Vols will look to get back to .500 on the season and finish in similar fashion to last year, but they still have dates with two current top 10 teams.