Jacksonville State football hires former Alabama, Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt

Jacksonville State football has hired embattled former Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt to be an analyst.

The news was confirmed to The Gadsden Times by a athletics department spokesman after coach Charles Kelly talked about Pruitt during a signing day press conference on Feb. 5. According to the spokesman, Pruitt was officially hired on Dec. 9, 2025 and is a quality control analyst for the Gamecocks.

The hire came a couple months after the NCAA gave the school permission to hire Pruitt through a letter dated Oct. 27. Pruitt had been coaching his alma mater Plainview High School in Rainsville under his father, Dale. The Bears lost in the AHSAA semifinals on Nov. 28.

With Pruitt still under a show-cause for his part in recruiting violations with the Volunteers. Jacksonville State had to send a letter dated June 12 to the NCAA stating intentions and why it wanted to hire Pruitt.

Jacksonville State cited the ability to get Pruitt on staff, for a cheaper rate, as an opportunity it wouldn’t normally be able to provide for its student-athletes, stating in the letter that “the best football programs in the country, and indeed most schools in the Southeastern Conference, would have already hired Mr. Pruitt as their defensive coordinator.”

Pruitt’s six-year show-cause order was issued in July 2023 and includes a one-year suspension from participating in team activities for his first year in any new job at an NCAA institution. It is unknown if that suspension will still be enforced by Jacksonville State.

It’s been a long process since that June 12 letter, which stated the Gamecocks would hire Pruitt on August 1 if they had not heard back. The NCAA responded Sept. 12 in writing, asking for a meeting with university president Don Killinsgworth, athletics director Greg Seitz, Kelly and Pruitt, along with Misty Ray, Jax State’s senior associate AD over compliance.

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After leaving Tennessee, Pruitt spent one year with the New York Giants in 2021. Pruitt previously coached alongside Kelly while at Florida State and Pruitt hired Kelly as part of his first staff with Tennessee. During his weekly press conference on Oct. 25, Kelly expressed his support for trying to hire Pruitt.

“He is one of the best defensive minds I have ever been around in college football. He’s been out of coaching four years now, so I did look into when I first got here of the opportunity to bring him on in some capacity,” Kelly said. “Let me say this, here at our university we’re about compliance, we do things the right things. There’s a process that you have to go through in order to make hires.”

Maxwell Donaldson covers high school sports, Jax State athletics, the outdoors in Alabama and more for the Gadsden Times. Find him on Twitter/X @_Max_Donaldson and contact him at MDonaldson@usatodayco.com.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Jax State football hires former Alabama, Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt