Vols use open date to improve

With no game looming Saturday, the Tennessee football team put in another solid day of practice Wednesday at Haslam Field. The Vols worked on fine-tuning all facets of their performance before turning attention Thursday to their Oct. 23 opponent, No. 8 Alabama.

“We got a little better and that’s what our objective was,” head coach Derek Dooley said. “I think every player got a little better in some fashion and tomorrow we’ll turn our attention to our next opponent and start working on them a little bit.”

The Vols have had a motivated mentality despite not preparing for a Saturday game for the first time since the final week of August. With the amount of youth UT has, its only focus is to get better.

“It was good,” Dooley said. “To get what we got out of them two days on an open week, open dates are tough on every team. Who wants to practice when you don’t play? Not many guys. I think it was a little easier for our team because they’re young and they know they need a lot of work, so the attitude was great.”

SENIORS STAND OUT

While Dooley spoke on the impact of the freshmen class’ spirit following Tuesday’s practice, he emphasized the importance of senior leadership Wednesday.

“They’re critical,” Dooley said. “We need the seniors. We have some good players in the senior class. Some of them are playing really well and some of them need to play a little better. They all worked hard this week. They were great (for the) open date. They were upbeat and we need them to be.”

WEEK BY WEEK

With 16 true freshmen that have seen action for the Vols this season, it’s easy to point to the future with a class that has shown flashes of potential. Dooley maintains that he is focused on putting the players on the field that give the Vols their best chance to win while taking it game-by-game.

“We’re going to go out and try to win the next game,” Dooley said. “I’m not into this big-picture thinking that everybody else is. We’re not here to win the championship. We’re here to win the next game. We’re not here to lay the foundation but we’re here to try to win the next game. We’re laying a foundation by the values we’re instilling. That’s what we’re doing but our objective is to win the next game and that’s what we’re going to keep trying to do week-to-week.

“At the end of the year, we’ll look back and say ‘How were we?’ That’s all you can do. When you start thinking that way, you quit competing in the game the right way. That’s what we did last week. We want to win but we get behind and, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re not going to win.’ Just go play. We’re not laying foundations. You all keep bringing up the freshmen. That’s our team. The freshmen are part of the team and so are the seniors.”