Paul Finebaum thinks Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt should have been wiser about his words following the team’s spring game this weekend. After the game, Pruitt made strong remarks against the Vols fan base and his players, going as far as to say some of the Vols quit on Saturday.
During a radion show on Monday morning, Finebaum said Pruitt must tread lightly when he is letting these kinds of comments out.
“I really liked what he did and I think everyone is starting to understand how he won Phillip Fulmer over and how he won Nick Saban and some of the other people over in the past,” Finebaum said during his weekly appearance on WJOX-FM’s The RoundTable, via 247Sports’ Brad Crawford. “But what I am concerned about is when you criticize the people who actually showed up at the game. It’s not a good look. I think they tried too hard in Knoxville to hype this game as something more than it was.
“I was in Knoxville last year and I saw this football team. I’m not sure that I blame anyone for not wanting to go see them again. I mean, Jeremy Pruitt has to prove something on the field. And just trying to hype ‘let’s have 60 or 70 or 80 thousand at the game’ or whatever just wasn’t going to do it. I think it was a mistake. I don’t think it was a critical mistake because right now the fans are all-in, but it’s like you’re an entertainer. You’re the Eagles on a Friday night and you’re saying, ‘Man, where are the people?’ Well, you’re talking to the people who showed up and bought tickets. It’s never a good look when you do that.”
More than 65,000 fans were in attendance for Pruitt, but that wasn’t enough for him.
The Vols’ regular season kicks off on Sept. 1 with a meeting against the Big 12’s West Virginia Mountaineers.