The Early Years

Born on May 28, 1974 in Rainsville, Alabama, Jeremy Pruitt is an accomplished professional football coach, having been involved in both college football and the NFL. Pruitt played college football himself while at Middle Tennessee University.

Pruitt attended Plainview High School in his hometown of Rainsville, Alabama. He had a successful playing record at high school where his father was also Head Coach. In both 1991 and 1992, Pruitt was All State.

After leaving Plainview, he attended two colleges, starting with Middle Tennessee University. Although he initially played as a quarterback, he changed position to defensive quarterback and was coached by renowned James (Boots) Donnelly.

After his sophomore year, he moved to the University of Alabama to complete his college education before venturing into the world of professional coaching.

Coaching History & Timeline

Pruitt remained at the University of Alabama after graduating, to stay on as a Graduate assistant coach to the football team. After this initial season, he returned to his old high school to work as the defensive backs coach in 1998.

He had a one year stint as the defensive backs coach at the University of West Alabama before coming back to Plainview High School, this time as the defensive coordinator.

Between 2000 and 2007, Pruitt remained on the high school coaching circuit, moving to Fort Payne High School and then Hoover High School, both in Alabama. He focused on his strong suit, and predominantly worked as defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach.

After this period he made the foray back into college football with a role as the Director of Player Development, before becoming the defensive backs coach for three years.

Pruitt then made the move to Florida State University, again as defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach, before two seasons at the University of Georgia followed by two seasons at Alabama.

20 years after his first coaching position, Pruitt was appointed as Head Coach to the Volunteers at the University of Tennessee in 2018.

He started his tenure with a losing season opener, with the Volunteers going 14-40 against the University of West Virginia. Whilst the next match was a solid win, going 59-3 against East Tennessee State, the Volunteers had a losing season overall, finishing 5-7.

The Volunteers played some excellent games in the 2019 season, which included six back to back wins, finishing the season 8-5. The 2020 season was extremely poor, with the Volunteers losing the season 3-7.

However, due to recruiting violations, the 2019 and 2020 season wins were vacated, meaning the official record of the seasons were in fact, 0-5 and 0-7 respectively. This was no doubt demoralizing for the team and all their hard work.

It also means that in normal circumstances Pruitt’s record at Tennessee would have stood at 16-19 overall, but due to the vacated games he finished with a shocking 5-19 record and of course, the controversy that ensued tarnished his reputation.

Considering the recruiting scandal at the University of Tennessee, Pruitt was very fortunate to be hired as senior defensive assistant for the New York Giants in 2021. However, this was short lived and he was not kept on the team after this season.

Present Day

After a shaky several years, it emerged that Pruitt had returned to a position at his high school. Instead of coaching football, Pruitt has been hired as a physical education teacher and coach of the junior high school basketball team.