The Zeitgeist List · coaching

Jeremy Pruitt

Followed Butch Jones. Jeremy Pruitt held Tennessee at Power Program III for 3 seasons.

16–19

2018–2020 · 1 stint

Career arc

His real stature score, season by season, across every program he’s coached — so a stretch that stays in one tier the whole way can still climb or sink on the line, not just flatten out. Node color marks the tier reached. Which program a stretch belongs to is carried by the shaded lane behind it.

Reached Power Program in his 1st career season — faster than 57% of the 395 FBS coaches who have ever reached Power Program (rank #1 of 395 by seasons-to-arrival).

Tennessee, 3 seasons

−3.6

Power Program III → Power Program III.

Style position and drift

Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.

Pass rate — share of offensive plays that were pass attemptsfirst covered seasonmost recent covered seasonfull season-to-season range (3+ covered seasons)

How much that is, against every other stint

Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 258 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2014–2025.

Typical stint7.010.2 median13.9middle half of all stints

Tennessee2.3pt#249 of 258 · less than most

The big-game ledger

How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.

3–5 against his rivals. Winless in 3 tries against Dan Mullen.

Rivalry record

3–5

37.5% · 3 rivals

One-score games

4–3

57.1% · margin ≤8

vs. Blue Blood or better

0–2

0.0%

Rivalry ledger

Alabama0–30%

Kentucky2–167%

Vanderbilt1–150%

The toughest matchup

vs. Dan Mullen0–3

3 meetings, 2018–2020

’18 L’19 L’20 L · blew a 4-pt lead

0% win rate across a real, 3-meeting series — short of the bar this site uses before badging a series “Nemesis.” Shown here as the toughest matchup on record, not an algorithmic crown.

Performance by opponent class

Dynasty

0–2 0.0%

Blue Blood

0–2 0.0%

Power Program

3–9 25.0%

National Program

5–3 62.5%

Regional Program

4–2 66.7%

His own effect, isolated

A statistical estimate of this coach’s contribution to team performance, separated from that season’s roster talent, returning production, and his coordinators — pooled across his whole head-coaching career.

Offense marginal impact

-0.44

#288 of 319 · less than most

Defense marginal impact

+0.03

#131 of 325 · a typical amount

Model fit as of 2026-09-04.

Coaching career

2018–2020

Tennesseecaretaker

Power Program III → Power Program III

Jeremy Pruitt held Tennessee at Power Program III for 3 seasons.

16th-best Tennessee tenure of 16 by the numbers.

Recruiter or developer?

Underperforms his recruiting talent on offense and performs about as expected for his recruiting talent on defense.

Offense vs. talent

-32.7 pts

#203 of 208 · less than most

Defense vs. talent

-6.2 pts

#130 of 208 · a typical amount

Recruiting talent is team-wide (no offense/defense split exists in the source data) -- both sides are scored against the same talent input, only the outcome is side-specific.

Followed Butch Jones (2013–2017) · succeeded by Josh Heupel (2021–2026).

Season	2018	2019	2020
Record & result
Record	5–7	8–5	3–7
Postseason	—	W bowl	—
Recruiting rank	#21	#13	#10
Style — pass rate
Pass rate	41.5	43.8	43.2
Coordinators
OC	Tyson Helton	Jim Chaney	Jim Chaney
DC	Kevin Sherrer / Chris Rumph	Derrick Ansley	Derrick Ansley
Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile
Offense	19	40	33
Defense	54	79	37
Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script (2021+ only)
1st-down pass%	33.8	41.9	37.2
Red-zone pass%	33.3	44.6	25.0
4th-down go%opp. territory	20.7	18.4	26.1

Does the system survive a coordinator change?

OC: Tyson Helton → Jim Chaney · 2019

1-season window either side — numbers shown, not enough to badge a verdict.

1st-down pass rate: 33.8% → 41.9% (+8.1 pts)

Confound, shown not hidden: only 86% of offensive production returned the year the coordinator changed — the roster turned over at the same time, not just the play-caller.

DC: Kevin Sherrer / co-Chris Rumph → Derrick Ansley · 2019

1-season window either side — numbers shown, not enough to badge a verdict.

Where the roster comes from, by position

Grows Interior line from high school

100%

#198 of 224 stints

Grows Tackle from high school

100%

#198 of 223 stints

Postseason detail2019: Beat Indiana 23–22 Taxslayer Gator Bowl

7 NFL Draft picks: Rashaan Gaulden (2018), John Kelly (2018), Kahlil McKenzie (2018), Darrell Taylor (2020), Jauan Jennings (2020), Josh Palmer (2021), Trey Smith (2021)

16–19

The Zeitgeist List · coordinating

Jeremy Pruitt

Defensive coordinator across 2 programs, 3 stints, before and after wearing the head-coach hat — every season measured on the same axis, whether he personally ran the unit or someone else did.

How to read this. Coordinator seasons come from coordinator_journeys(); head-coaching-era seasons are the same unit's FBS-relative percentile for those years, regardless of who coached it, read directly from staff_assignments. A role change (a “hinge”) is a fact, never a performance verdict — only the season-by-season data itself is colored by outcome.