Most Alabama football fans are dancing in the streets after Friday’s news of Pete Golding leaving the Crimson Tide for Ole Miss hit the internet.
After five seasons as defensive coordinator, Nick Saban parts ways with Golding.
RELATED: Alabama fans are clamoring for Jeremy Pruitt to return as the team’s defensive coordinator
Who will Saban select as the new defensive play-caller? Several people have voted to bring Jeremy Pruitt back to the program.
He served as the director of player development from 2007 to 2009. Pruitt moved to on-field coach with defensive backs in 2010 and stayed there until 2012. He returned to the University of Alabama in 2016 as a defensive coordinator for two seasons. Pruitt assisted Saban to four national championships and coordinated a defense in 2016 that had fans entertained. Glenn Schumann of Georgia is the primary target for Alabama to replace Golding, but a former national champion gave Pruitt his vote during In My Own Words. Mike McCoy, a former Tide wide receiver from 2006 to 2009, won a BCS National Championship in 2009.
He said Alabama needs to call Pruitt right now.
*Former Alabama WR Mike McCoy speaks about why Nick Saban needs to return Jeremy Pruitt at the 29:32 mark
“I have been petitioning for Jeremy Pruitt for the last two years,” McCoy said Friday.
McCoy said Pruitt has the pedigree as a former player and he’s a ‘heck of a coach.’
RELATED: Former Alabama WR believes Nick Saban should call Jeremy Pruitt immediately for open DC job
“I feel like your players are going to embody the spirit of their position coach or coordinator,” he said. “You got a dawg as a coordinator, more than likely you are going to have dawgs on the field. It is similar to parents. If you have nice parents, you are going to have a nice kid. If you have tough parents, you are probably going to raise tough kids. That is my situation. I would love somebody who is a player’s coach. I don’t think you can miss when you have that pedigree.”
Pruitt was so beloved by players that he and his wife, Casey, named their second son after two Alabama linebackers.
His name is Flynt Anderson-Foster Pruitt, and he entered the world in 2017: a year that Alabama won a College Football Playoff National Championship. Ryan Anderson and Reuben Foster were two of the fiercest linebackers in the Saban era, and both fed off Pruitt’s energy as a coach. McCoy knows his Alma mater needs that fire back into the program.
Pruitt could return as the DC, but he could also serve as a safeties coach or an off-field analyst.
People want him in Tuscaloosa (Ala.) in some defensive capacity.
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Stephen M. Smith is the managing editor and senior writer for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can “like” him on Facebook or “follow” him on Twitter, via @CoachingMSmith.
