The 2020 college football season can’t end soon enough for either Vanderbilt or Tennessee. This SEC year for the local college teams has been far bleaker than either anticipated. Its already resulted in one head coach being fired, and another one definitely on
a super hot seat. After the SEC decided to adopt a conference-only football schedule, no one assumed that either Vanderbilt or Tennessee would win a league title. But the feeling was Vanderbilt could at least win four, maybe five games, and Tennessee would improve with the momentum generated by last season’s stretch of winning games capped off by a bowl triumph.
Well, with two games remaining, it has been a disastrous year for both. Derek Mason didn’t survive the year, as athletic director Candace Lee pulled the plug on him last week. Mason had never had a winning season through his seven-year tenure, and the Commodores enter Saturday’s Tennessee contest 0-8, on track for the first winless season in the school’s history. All the national goodwill that had been generated by Mason’s use of Sarah Fuller as a kicker against Missouri, the first time a woman had ever participated in a Power 5 Conference game, evaporated in the wake of a 41-0 disaster where the offense never even got in position for her to attempt a field goal, let alone score a touchdown and have her attempt an extra point.
Mason’s character and integrity remain impressive. Everyone who’s ever encountered him comes away saluting his dignity, intellect, love for the game and young people, and expertise as a defensive strategist. But he was never able to turn the corner at Vanderbilt, and certainly could’t duplicate the three-year success of his predecessor James Franklin. Wherever he lands next, it will most likely be as a defensive coordinator or position coach. Hopefully he can work his way back into head coaching consideration at some future date.
It looked as though Jeremy Pruitt was turning things around at Tennessee following 2019’s successful second half. But a 2-0 start has now been forgotten in the wake of a six-game losing streak, all by double digits. That’s something that’s never happened in Tennessee football history, which dates back to nearly the end of the 19th century. Pruitt has feuded with the media, fired a coach in the middle of a game, been shown on camera in a borderline abusive situation with a player, and failed to make the team competitive in its three biggest games. A recent column detailed Pruitt’s record of futility against the trio of Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Tennessee has lost every game in the series since Pruitt’s arrival by an average margin of more than 20 points.
If those were the only games the Vols were losing under Pruitt, that would be one thing. But there have been embarrassing home losses, in particular Georgia State last year, and Kentucky this season.
The ugly truth is if Tennessee didn’t already have a recent dismal record of hiring and firing head coaches, Pruitt would probably already have been dispatched. But after going through Lane Kiffin, Derek Dooley and Butch Jones, and also in the midst of a severe pandemic-fueled budget crisis, the last thing the school wants to do is have to pay out a lucrative buyout and simultaneously conduct another coaching search.
Still, if Pruitt’s Vols should somehow lose to Vanderbilt in Nashville Saturday, that might change thinking all the way round. However the funny thing about this season played in the wake of COVID-19’s global havoc is Tennessee could still wind up in a bowl game, 3-7 or 2-8 record and all. The NCAA suspended the six win requirement for bowl eligibility this season, and the Music City Bowl folks are on record saying Tennessee is one of the teams under consideration.
THAT would truly be an intriguing capper on what’s otherwise been a season of horrors for both Vanderbilt and Tennessee.
