Vols working through unknowns

Tennessee officially passed the mid-week point in its preparations for Saturday’s season opener against UT Martin. The Vols worked for better than 90 minutes at Haslam Field in their next-to-last full practice before game day.

Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley spoke after practice about how the Vols plan to combat his defense’s lack of size and depth.

“We’ll probably have to do a lot more schematically. We’ll probably have to roll more guys. You just have to figure out how to make it work. It’s just like anything. You have a hand you have to play. You can’t fold and that’s what we’re doing.”

Dooley also addressed his quarterback situation in saying that junior Matt Simms would start the game. How much playing time freshman Tyler Bray receives is yet to be seen.

“I have no idea,” Dooley said. “I’m going in (with) Matt (Simms) as our quarterback. I don’t have any plan. I’m just going to let the game dictate what we do. We’ll make that determination (on Tyler) Saturday. We have to go out there and say, ‘What do we need to do to win the football game?’ and that’s all we’re worried about right now.”

Certainly the quarterback play will be aided by an effective running game from the backfield duo of junior Tauren Poole and sophomore David Oku.

“Tauren and Oku will be playing and those are our two backs,” Dooley said. “We’ll roll them. We’re going to give Oku a lot of touches.”

Defensively, the Vols also hope to get solid performances from the newcomers to a lineup that lost first-round NFL draft picks Eric Berry and Dan Williams.

“It’s like a lot of these positions, it’s hard for us,” Dooley said. “We don’t really have a script. We have to go in there and see how the game goes and see what we need to do. There’s so much unknown on how our players are going to play. I have an idea of how some of the older guys are going to play because I’ve seen them on film. All the new guys, I don’t know how they’re going to play. We just have to see it and make some good game day adjustments if we need to.”