Jeremy Pruitt was hired after the 2017 season to revive a Tennessee football program that many thought was dead. The Volunteers were coming off of a 4-8 season, the worst in school history, and with former Vols coach Phil Fulmer as AD, Vols fans were excited about the future.

That future is here and it doesn’t look any prettier. In his first season with the Vols, Pruitt led the team to a 5-7 record (2-6) in the SEC. Now, only four games into the 2019 season, Vols fans are calling for Pruitt’s head. The team is off to a disappointing 1-3 start, including losses to Georgia State, BYU, and Florida. The Vols have a tough slate of SEC conference games ahead which includes Georgia, Mississippi State, and Alabama. They will more than likely be sitting at 1-6 after that stretch which leads to the question, will Jeremy Pruitt be the head coach at Tennessee in 2020? Or even at the end of this season?

No school wants to replace a coach after two seasons, but when you bring in the talent that Tennessee does and you don’t see returns on the field it’s hard to justify keeping Pruitt. Back to the original question though, what’s next for Tennessee? Here are some possible outcomes.

Pruitt Keeps His Job

It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. He’s only a year and a half in and no one thought this revival would happen overnight. He keeps signing top recruiting classes. He had the 13th ranked class nationally for 2019 and currently has the 23rd ranked class for 2020. Turnarounds like this take time and patience. Fans may be upset when they see coaches like Jeff Brohm having more early success on, but give Pruitt more time to get in his guys and see what happens.

Phillip Fulmer Executes Order 66

Yahoo recently published an article on the possibility of Phillip Fulmer firing Pruitt just to take over the job himself. The article points to Fulmer’s history of trying to “undercut” his predecessors (Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley, and Butch Jones) and his role in the “coup” to take out the Vols previous AD, John Currie. If the Vols are sitting at 1-6 after this murderers row of SEC elites, will Fulmer execute order 66 and take the job for himself? It’s hard to argue with the Yahoo article. Don’t laugh this one-off. Fulmer is the most successful coach in Tennessee history and will do anything to get himself (and his wallet) in the spotlight.

Mike Leach

Before former Athletic Director John Currie was forced out of his job, he had been in close talks with Washington State Head Coach, Mike Leach, on coming to Knoxville. If Currie would’ve remained AD there’s a good chance that Leach would already to the Volunteers head coach. With the success Leach has had at Wazzu, he’s in a prime position to make the jump to a big-time job.

How about Harbaugh?

Many people suspect that Jim Harbaugh is on the hot seat at Michigan and if he’s let go, Tennessee would be the perfect destination to revive his college coaching career. Tennessee is in the SEC, the conference Harbaugh wants to beat more than anyone else. There is less pressure to win a National Championship at Tennessee so if he wins 9 or 10 games for a couple of seasons no one will complain. Lastly, he will finally get to go head to head with Nick Saban, and we’d get to see it every single year. This would probably never happen but imagine a Jim Harbaugh-led Tennessee team squaring off against Alabama every year. That’s must-watch football.

Complete Chaos

Fulmer was hired to find a football coach and he hired Pruitt. The blame here goes to him just as much as it does Pruitt. Tennessee could decide to move on from Fulmer and Pruitt both. What happens after that? Complete and utter chaos. However, that’s become the norm in Knoxville so maybe more chaos is what we need.

No matter what happens though, it’s going to be a long season for Vols fans. After all Tennessee football has been through the last few years, maybe they just need to bring in the Student Union crew.