GoVols247: A Tennessee Volunteers athletics podcast

GoVols247's Wes Rucker, Ryan Callahan and Patrick Brown went into Fort Rucker Studio to break down the latest as the second week of Tennessee football's first spring camp under coach Jeremy Pruitt approaches its conclusion.

Pruitt has been the only person in the Tennessee football program to speak on the record with reporters since the head coach took the job in December, and that trend has continued through at least the first five practices this spring. Pruitt also has done his best to avoid mentioning any individual players to this point in camp, but he said there's been a simple reason for that: He doesn't know how his players will react to public compliments (or criticism) from their new coach.

Don't be fooled, though. We've learned plenty about this team the past two weeks.

We've learned who's healthy, who's not healthy and who's somewhere in between. We've learned what guys have changed their bodies in new strength coach Craig Fitzgerald's winter-workouts program. We've learned that several players are lining up in different spots from last season, and we've learned that at least some of those changes look likely to stick. We've learned what Pruitt thinks about the way his players are adjusting to his complex, aggressive, 3-4-base defense. We've learned how well players are — or aren't — adjusting to meetings with Pruitt and Co. on a daily basis. Those meetings are longer and more detailed than they were under predecessor Butch Jones, and some are handling it better than others. We've learned that and much more.

And those topics — along with Vols star forward Admiral Schofield declaring for the NBA Draft (but not signing with an agent), and a decent start to SEC play for new Tennessee coach Tony Vitello's baseball program — will be discussed in this episode.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker and Grant Ramey went into Fort Rucker Studio to review a Tennessee basketball season that was so surprisingly good until it had a surprisingly sour finish. The Vols won an SEC championship after being picked to finish 13th in the 14th-team league, and they returned to the NCAA Tournament after a three-year absence before being shocked by Final Four-bound Loyola-Chicago in a second round thriller in Dallas. How do you summarize a season that was so good but ended so painfully? Is it possible for a team to have a great but disappointing season? Will this season be remembered in a good way, a bad way or both? Were these Vols ultimately a victim of their own success? Did they just have a bad injury at a bad time and run into the wrong Cinderella at the wrong time? Will this team's stomach-punching NCAA Tournament exit be the fuel for an even bigger season, since virtually the entire roster will be back? Or was this season's magic something that can't be replicated for one reason or another? What areas need to be improved or at least fortified in the offseason? Those are some — but not all — of the questions discussed in this episode.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker and Grant Ramey went into Fort Rucker Studio for an episode that was initially scheduled as a basketball season recap but became something entirely different after Thursday night's document dump from the Tennessee athletic department in response to Freedom of Information Act requests regarding the final days of former athletic director John Currie's tenure. Currie was placed on suspension with leave on Dec. 1 after his search to replace fired football coach Butch Jones turned into a bit of a circus show. Thousands of pages of correspondence (emails, text messages and social media messages) between Currie and hundreds of people put a bright light on one of the wildest coaching searches (and athletic director searches) in recent memory. A basketball-season-in-review episode got pushed back to next week in order to make room for breaking news on the most interesting beat in college sports. 

GoVols247's Wes Rucker, Ryan Callahan and Patrick Brown went into Fort Rucker Studio to break down the latest on Week One of Tennessee's first spring camp under football coach Jeremy Pruitt. The Vols have gone through two of the three scheduled practices for the week, and they won't put on full pads until next week, but there's already been plenty of noticeable changes on Haslam Field. Several players are lined up in new positions, several players look a lot different physically and some players are either temporarily or permanently gone from the program. The transition from Butch Jones (now an Alabama intern) to Pruitt (formerly Alabama's defensive coordinator) was always going to be an interesting one, and several changes are already easy to spot. Those changes are the main topic of this episode, but several other news and notes are also on the agenda. And if you're wondering about the PentaVol Papers that emerged Thursday night — just after we recorded this podcast episode — then you won't have to wait long. We'll have a special edition of the GoVols247 Podcast later in the day to break down the treasure trove of documents we received from Tennessee in response to a Freedom of Information Act request on John Currie's turbulent final days as Tennessee's acting athletic director.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker and Patrick Brown went into Fort Rucker Studio for the second of our two-part preview of Tennessee's first spring camp under new head football coach Jeremy Pruitt. This episode focuses on the defense, which might need to carry the team in 2018. Pruitt is a defensive backs coach by trade, and he's spent much of his career working for defensive mastermind Nick Saban, and Tennessee almost certainly will have to be good on that side of the ball in order to make Pruitt's first season a good one. Reasons for optimism and causes for pause on all three levels of Tennessee's defense are the main topics of this episode, but several other topics are discussed. Patrick recently sat down with Pruitt and came away with updates on several topics, including the addition of graduate-transfer quarterback Keller Chryst from Stanford, the addition of graduate-transfer running back Madre London from Michigan State, the return of star wide receiver Jauan Jennings to the program's good graces and the health of Tennessee's offensive line.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker (from Fort Rucker Studio) and Grant Ramey (from GoVols247's Blount County satellite office) conversed through the modern technological marvel that is Al Gore's Internets about Tennessee's return to the NCAA Tournament after a three-year absence. The Vols' most recent trip to March Madness ended in a surprising Sweet Sixteen run despite being placed in the First Four, but advancing that far or beyond wouldn't be a huge shock to anyone this season. Tennessee has been one of college basketball's better teams all season and has become a chic Final Four pick as the No. 3 seed in the South Region. The Vols will open with No. 14 seed Wright State on Thursday afternoon in Dallas, and if they take care of business against the Raiders they'll play either No. 6 seed Miami or No. 11 seed Loyola-Chicago on Saturday. What are the reasons for optimism and causes for pause for Rick Barnes' Vols heading into the tournament? Those are the main questions addressed in this episode.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker and Grant Ramey went into Fort Rucker Studio to break down the latest with the SEC-champion Tennessee basketball team heading into the conference tournament — which started Wednesday night for some of the league but won't start until Friday night for the Vols, who received a double-bye directly into the quarterfinal round. The second-seeded Vols (who shared the league title with top-seeded Auburn) will play Mississippi State, with the winner facing the Arkansas-Florida winner in a Saturday semifinal. Tennessee's late-season finish capped an improbable run to a league title, but Rick Barnes and his Vols have even bigger goals in mind heading into the postseason. What needs to happen for Tennessee to do that, though? What are the reasons for optimism? What are the causes for pause? Those and many other questions are discussed in this episode.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker, Ryan Callahan and Patrick Brown went into Fort Rucker Studio for the first of our two-part preview of Tennessee's first spring camp under new head football coach Jeremy Pruitt. The Vols and their new coaching staff will get a crash course on each other the next several weeks, and a Tennessee offense that already had plenty of holes on paper will be without a few of its top players for at least a good portion of the spring. A position-by-position look at Tennessee's offense revealed many more questions than answers, but every team gets a blank slate under the next staff, so there might be more answers than questions after the annual Orange & White Game. There's plenty of other news to discuss in this episode, too, including the Vols' addition of graduate transfer quarterback (and former starting quarterback) Keller Chryst from Stanford, the latest on Butch Jones and his Excellent Adventure in Tuscaloosa, the performance of several former Tennessee players at the annual NFL combine and a recap from the Vols' busy Junior Day over the weekend. And dancing. Definitely dancing.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker and Grant Ramey went into Fort Rucker Studio to break down the latest with a Tennessee basketball team that is one win away from earning at least a share of an SEC championship. The 16th-ranked Vols have spent most of this season defying external (but not internal) expectations for a team that was picked to finished 13th in the 14-team SEC, and Saturday opponent Georgia is the only thing standing between them and at least a share of the SEC title spoils. Of course, it should be added that Georgia has been a problem for the Vols in the Barnes era. Barnes is 0-5 against Bulldogs coach Mark Fox, with four of those losses coming with Barnes at Tennessee and Fox at Georgia. How has Tennessee put itself in position to win an SEC title, and what do the Vols need to do in order to finish the drill? All of that — plus a discussion on some players who are hot, cold or somewhere in between at the moment — is included in this episode.

GoVols247's Wes Rucker, Ryan Callahan and Patrick Brown went into Fort Rucker Studio to break down another surprisingly busy week of news for the Tennessee football program. Sophomore-to-be offensive lineman Trey Smith — arguably the Vols' best player — is facing an uncertain future because of a newly-discovered (but unspecified) health situation, throwing another large wrench into the rebuilding efforts of new head coach Jeremy Pruitt and his staff. We break down the latest on what we know regarding Smith's situation, and the impact that losing him for any period of time would do to Tennessee's offensive line. That's the biggest news of the week, but it's far from the only interesting news. Former Vols head coach and still-Neyland-Stadium-scoreboard star Butch Jones has surfaced as a potential candidate for an analyst position at archrival Alabama, and there's no way we could avoid discussing that. Tennessee's upcoming Junior Day for recruiting is also discussed in an episode that concludes with questions from GoVols247 subscribers and social-media followers.