Tennessee Vols offensive coordinator Jim Chaney has a great track record of success.
But he hasn’t found much success so far in his second stint as the offensive coordinator at Tennessee.
And it’s clearly causing some tension between Chaney and UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt.
On Monday, during a virtual media session with reporters, Pruitt not-so-subtly pointed out his unhappiness with the Vols’ offensive approach this season.
Pruitt: Philosophically offensively, we’ve got to be more aggressive. We have to push the ball down field.
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) November 9, 2020
#Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt: We as a coaching staff have to do a much better job of creating opportunities for our guys.
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) November 9, 2020
Pruitt: In the second half, we didn’t run the ball nearly as effectively as we did in the first half. One thing that I’ve said all along: You always want to coach aggressively. It’s something we’ve got to do a better job of, really in all three phases.
— GoVols247 (@GoVols247) November 9, 2020
Pruitt: Offensively, the name of the game is scoring points. You can do it a bunch of different ways. We’ve got to call an aggressive game, and when we do that, we’ve got to execute it.
— GoVols247 (@GoVols247) November 9, 2020
I mean, Pruitt is pretty much calling out Chaney as a play-caller. There’s no way around it.
Now, I’m not sure what Pruitt wants Chaney to do. Pruitt has tied Chaney’s hands by continually trotting out Jarrett Guarantano as Tennessee’s quarterback. We’ve seen for three years now that Guarantano is not the guy that’s going to lead an “aggressive offense”.
There’s been plenty of instances of Chaney scheming open wide receivers and JG simply can’t execute the play. That’s not on Chaney, that’s on Guarantano.
Pruitt might not be happy with the play calling, but maybe he should take a look at why Chaney is being forced to run the ball so much (something he’s typically shied away from at times at his various coaching stops).
Ultimately the offensive failures of this team are on Pruitt, not Chaney.
Featured image via Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports
