Huddle up. Everybody in.

Say it with me, folks.

“Jeremy Pruitt can recruit.”

After much consternation for much of this recruiting cycle, National Signing Day has come and nearly gone, and Pruitt’s Vols have rallied to a top-10 spot in 247Sports’ Team Recruiting Rankings.

Pruitt just proved something he’s proved throughout his entire career at the college level.

When he was a support staffer, he could recruit at a high level. When he was a position coach, he could recruit at a high level. When he was a coordinator, he could recruit at a high level.

Now that he’s a head coach, yes, he can still recruit at a high level.

Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt

I’m not suggesting those who doubted Tennessee would have a top-10 spot on National Signing Day should upload YouTube videos of themselves receiving a stigmata. It was fair to at least wonder whether the Vols could be here at this point. The Vols hovered in the mid- to low-teens for most of this cycle, and at one point they even dipped into the 20s, which led to a lot of Tennessee fans clutching a lot of pearls.

Again, those concerns weren’t entirely misplaced.

When your team plays in the SEC — a land where a top-10 national class isn’t guaranteed to be a top-half-in-your-league class — it’s fair to be concerned with a class in the high-teens. And it’s fair to be legitimately worried when things fall below that mark. Really. It’s OK.

But I’ll suggest what I suggested throughout the process.

“Jeremy Pruitt can recruit.”

Wednesday’s additions of versatile, explosive four-star athletes Malachi Wideman and Damarcus Beckwith pushed the Vols into the top-10, but those aren’t the only additions from the past couple of months. Tennessee added a pair of high-profile transfers — big Georgia offensive lineman Cade Mays and speedy USC wide receiver Velus Jones Jr. — who won’t help the recruiting rankings but absolutely will bolster the roster. Pruitt on Wednesday called Mays’ one of the SEC’s best offensive linemen, and when the former five-star prospect from Knoxville Catholic High School is at his best, that’s absolutely true.

And who knows, this class might not be done.

The nation’s top uncommitted prospect — five-star Houston running back Zach Evans — is still strongly considering Tennessee. I have no idea how that kid’s wacky recruiting process will end, and I don’t know how anyone could at this point. But I do know he’s still very much considering the Vols. And I believe his talent makes him worth the effort and the risk.

It wasn’t just Wednesday’s additions that bumped Tennessee up the rankings, though.

Much of the bump came from a recent rankings update. Several Tennessee commits soared in that update after film from their senior seasons emerged. Once others saw the things Pruitt had seen, their stance on this class started to shift.

Again, say it with me, folks.

“Jeremy Pruitt can recruit.”

Damarcus Beckwith

Pruitt isn’t just a really good recruiter because he can convince good prospects and their parents to come play for him and his staff. He’s also a really good recruiter because he’s a really good talent evaluator. People who worked with him at Alabama, Florida State and Georgia raved about his ability to evaluate young players and give those programs an edge in several recruiting battles.

Tennessee’s football coach is a football coach’s football coach. Don’t be fooled by those hipster glasses he’s wearing. I guarantee you he didn’t pick those for himself. If you left that man to his own devices, he might wear those old-school bike shorts that coaches sported throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He cut his teeth at the high school level, and it’s easy to believe that he’d be happier than a pig in slop if he could spend every morning and evening in a fieldhouse and only leave for practice in the afternoon. This isn’t a job for him. It’s a lifestyle. He’s doing exactly what he wants to be doing with his life. Few of us are truly that fortunate. I consider myself blessed to be in that group, and I know Pruitt does, as well. He’s told me that more than once, and I’ve believed him every time.

Do I know whether Pruitt will prove to be a great head coach? No. If you want a sure thing, hire Nick Saban or Urban Meyer, or hire Dabo Swinney and surround him with those brilliant coordinators he’d had for much of his career. Just about everyone else is some form of risky, if national championships are your ultimate goal.

But I believed from Day One and still believe now that Pruitt has the ability to be a great head coach. He checks many of the prerequisite boxes. He’s a really good talent evaluator and recruiter. He’s a brilliant defensive mind on one side of the ball (defense, in his case) but also understands that someone else (Jim Chaney, in his case) needs the keys to the other side of the ball. He’s not afraid to gamble and coach aggressively in games. He hires good assistants. He’s not afraid to admit mistakes and change things, which is perhaps the most underrated trait required of great head coaches. He’s accountable for his decisions.

Is that everything required of great head coaches? No. Probably not, anyway.

There’s a political factor, too.

Unless you’re Saban and you win so much that you can write your own rules, it helps to have some hand-shakin’, baby-kissin’ skills. Pruitt has those skills — I’ve seen them — but I don’t believe he shows them as much as he should. But he continues to believe that he’ll be judged exclusively on how many games he wins and loses, and there’s certainly some truth in that. Besides, as long as Phillip Fulmer is Pruitt’s boss, Fulmer can handle a lot of that stuff. Few are better in that area than Fulmer, who could have been a prominent politician if he’d taken that route.

You know where Pruitt does show those skills, though?

On the recruiting trail.

So let’s circle back to where we started.

Huddle up. Everybody in.

Say it with me, folks.

“Jeremy Pruitt can recruit.”