FSU goes bold with defensive coordinator hire
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Bobby Bowden was known as the Riverboat Gambler. Jimbo Fisher clearly likes to roll the dice, too.
With Florida State defensive coordinator Mark Stoops moving on to coach Kentucky, Fisher has replaced him with Alabama defensive backs coach Jeremy Pruitt.
It’s a bold, risky move for Fisher because Pruitt has just four years’ of experience as a college assistant and has not been a defensive coordinator at the college level.
There were surely other more experienced and safer choices than Pruitt. But while he lacks coordinator experience, the 38-year-old Pruitt has built a distinguished resume in a short amount of time and could have two national championship rings before he takes over Florida State’s defense.
A former defensive back at Middle Tennessee and later Alabama in the mid-1990's, Pruitt spent about a decade as a high school football assistant coach in Alabama. He helped powerhouse Hoover, Ala., win Class 6A titles in 2004 and '05.
“I've known him for a long time,” said Fisher, who was an LSU assistant in the early 2000's when he first met Pruitt. “Very good coach. Very knowledgeable. Great recruiter. … We’ll keep a lot of the same things that we do on defense and we’ll add a few things that they bring.”
Pruitt joined coach Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama as a Director of Player Development in 2007, a position that Pruitt held until he was promoted in 2010 to defensive backs coach. Pruitt also coached the defensive backs at West Alabama in 1999.
He helped Alabama win a national title a year ago, will stay on and coach Alabama during the BCS Championship Game vs. Notre Dame on Jan. 7.
Despite plenty of turnover in the secondary, Pruitt’s defensive backs have delivered in each of his three seasons. Alabama had arguably the best defensive backfield in the nation in 2011, and then lost a pair of first-round picks in safety Mark Barron and cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick. But this year the Crimson Tide are first in the Football Bowl Subdivision in total defense (246 yards per game), second in scoring defense (10.7 points) and sixth in passing defense (166 yards allowed per game).
Pruitt is considered a rising star in college coaching, and he likely would have received a promotion to defensive coordinator if Kirby Smart, the Tide’s current defensive coordinator, had moved on to be a head coach. Smart appears to be staying put in Tuscaloosa, so it’s only natural that Pruitt was looking around.
Fisher, himself an assistant on Saban’s staff at LSU from 2000-04, would not have made this move if he wasn’t sure of Pruitt. And while Pruitt was likely not the top name on Fisher’s list, Saban offered more money to Pruitt in an attempt to keep him at Alabama. But Pruitt wanted the chance to be a coordinator at Florida State, and he will make approximately $540,000 in 2013.
“This is a great opportunity for me to join another one of the top college football programs in the country and take over as defensive coordinator for one of the best defenses out there,” Pruitt said.
And Pruitt meets what appears to be Fisher’s mold of an assistant: a coach in his 30s or 40s, a top-notch position coach and a tried-and-true recruiter.
It’s that last aspect, recruiting, that likely sealed the deal on Pruitt. As a longtime high school assistant in Alabama, Pruitt is well connected throughout the state. He’s considered one of the top recruiters in the country.
Fisher went with a safer choice in 2010 when he selected Stoops as his defensive coordinator. Stoops had won a national title as Miami’s defensive backs coach in 2001, and he was the defensive coordinator at Arizona from 2004-09.
Players immediately bought in to Stoops and what he had done in Arizona. And he turned one of the nation’s worst defenses in 2009 into a top-5 unit in 2011 and 2012.
But now Pruitt will have to reshape a defense that loses senior defensive ends Brandon Jenkins and Tank Carradine along with the potential departures of junior end Bjoern Werner and cornerback Xavier Rhodes, both of which are projected to be first-round picks if they enter the NFL Draft a year early.
Pruitt doesn't have coordinator experience but he will be surrounded by experienced assistants in 2013. Florida State is also bringing in former Alabama and Tennessee assistant Sal Sunseri to coach the defensive ends, joining defensive tackles coach Odell Haggins and linebackers coach Greg Hudson.
Fisher is gambling on Pruitt. But he’s clearly hoping to maintain the recruiting edge that Florida State has had the past few years while hoping that a Saban disciple will carry on Stoops’ work in Tallahassee.