UT Athletics
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt previewed the upcoming top-15 matchup against No. 3/3 Georgia on Saturday, Oct. 10 in Athens, Ga. with media members during his weekly press conference on Monday. The No. 14/12 Vols head into Week 3 on an eight-game win streak, which dates back to the 2019 season. UT’s 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff with the 2-0 Bulldogs will be broadcast on CBS.
Full Video Transcript
Opening statement…
“Looking back at last week’s game, I felt like offensively there was some improvement there. Again, we didn’t have a turnover and we need to continue to protect the football. One thing I’d like to see: I felt like there were too many times there were too many orange jerseys watching the play finish. We got to do a better job of being technical up front. We’ve got to be able to sustain and finish blocks. Defensively, disappointed in the lack of turnovers. Obviously, we had a couple of opportunities there and didn’t finish on the ball. Didn’t think we played particularly well in the backend of our defense. We’ve got to improve there. Still too many mistakes, too many mental errors. We’ve got to be able to clean that up. Special teams wise we missed a field goal, we kicked a kickoff out of bounds and there wasn’t much opportunity other than that in the punt return game. We have to continue to improve there.
“When you look at Georgia this week, I think it’s one of the better teams that I’ve seen in college football over the last couple of years. I think these guys have a lot of team speed. They’re big. They’re physical at the line of scrimmage and out on the perimeter they’ve got good running backs. Good skill players that get the guys the ball and give you multiple looks. On the defensive side, create a lot of negative plays. Special teams, because of their athleticism, they’ve got good returners. They’ve got good speed and they’re physical on the coverage team, so they don’t have a weakness. It’ll be a tremendous challenge for us, but it’s something we’re looking forward to.”
On the UT defense…
“We’ve been very inconsistent, particularly in the backend. If you put stress on your backend, you have to be able to eliminate big plays and I felt like from a technical standpoint we need really to improve there. We need to improve with our eyes. I felt like having our eyes in the wrong spot got us in trouble in several plays on Saturday and that’s just goes back to eye discipline – we have to be looking at the right stuff. We need to get more turnovers.”
On the health status of OL Jahmir Johnson and DL Elijah Simmons…
“Both of those guys will be available this week.”
On Cade Mays facing Georgia…
“I know Cade’s really happy he’s getting a chance to play. He’s very thankful for that. He went against most of these guys every single day. When you’re a competitor on both sides of the ball, it won’t be no different for the kids from Georgia. They’re used to going against Cade; Cade’s used to going against them. So, they’ll be real familiar with each other.”
On what about this Tennessee team gives him the most confidence…
“They’re willingness to work. They’re very coachable. They understand that we’re not playing at the level that we feel like we’re capable of playing. They understand that we’ve got to go to work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to improve. There are lots of things from a technical aspect that we need to really improve on. We need to improve on our effort and finishing.”
On getting some guys back in the secondary and how physical Tennessee’s football team is…
“We should be gaining some guys back, but listen, as we all know with the testing three days a week, it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen. So, we continue to work a lot of different guys. If we would’ve played today, Bryce (Thompson) probably would’ve been able to play the entire time, so he should be ready to go.
“From a physicality standpoint, we need to improve in a lot of areas – that (the secondary) would be one of them. When we talk about sustaining and finishing, I just didn’t see us finishing blockers, finishing runners. On the perimeter, it’s not to the level we want to be at.”
On what challenges Georgia will present on Saturday…
“I’ve said before, Georgia’s got a really good football team. They’re very well coached. They’ve got good players. They’re going to be there Saturday, so we need to focus on the things that we can control, which is us. We’ve got lots of things that we need to work on. We started working on them last night and we’ll continue through the rest of the week.”
On what he thought of Wanya Morris’ performance against Missouri and what he respects about Richard LeCounte of Georgia…
“Wanya played better this week than he did last week, and he should. He didn’t have near enough practices to be ready to play at a high level the first week. He got three more this past week and he’ll get three more this week. We need him to continue to improve. Richard’s a guy that’s played a lot of ball there at Georgia. He makes plays in the back end. He’s really good and has good eyes. He breaks on the ball well and is a good tackler. He’s a good football player.”
On the jumbo package that the Vols ran in Saturday’s win…
“I felt like the way Missouri plays defense, it probably gave us the best opportunity to ensure that we would have a chance to block everybody in the box. They really put a lot of guys up there and it gave us the best opportunity Saturday. We’ll pick and choose how we use it as the season goes on.”
On what Georgia QB Stetson Bennett brings to the table…
“He obviously is a smart young man. You can see him getting in and out of plays. He moves wide receivers if they’ve got somebody that they can’t block on the perimeter. He gets them in position. He gets the ball out of his hand and doesn’t take sacks. He plays with confidence and I’ve got a lot of respect for him by the way he’s played in the two games that he’s come in. You can see that his teammates have confidence in him also.”
On how he has felt about the play from Jaylen McCollough and Theo Jackson…
“I think all of these guys have got to play at a higher level. I believe the more they practice, they’ll improve. We’ve got to do that. Our competition is going to continue to improve every week and we’ve got to raise our level of play in the backend.”
On if some of the issues in the backend are due to Bryce Thompson being banged up…
“There’s probably a lot of reasons. I’d say the first one probably starts with us, as coaches. We’ve got to do a better job of coaching them up. Players need to have better discipline and (be) looking at the right stuff. We’ve got to be more fundamentally sound in the techniques we use. Most of the guys we have that are playing, they’ve played a lot of ball for us. It’s not like it’s their first time. So, we’ve got to create the right habits every day in practice, so it shows up on gameday.”
On what he saw from the running backs and offensive line on Saturday…
“I feel like we were committed to running the football. That gave us an opportunity to do that. I also feel like we left a lot of yards out there. We ran one particular play 10 times in the game and we only blocked it correctly four times. We’ve got to eliminate those mistakes to give us a chance to have more success.”
On if he believes in needing a signature win to establish a program and if the team is looking at the upcoming matchup with Georgia as just another game on the schedule…
“We really don’t control the schedule. We play whoever the next team is on our schedule. Our team has continued to improve over the last couple of years and we’ve got to continue to do that. We’re nowhere (near) where we want to be. We understand the teams that are in this league and the teams that have had success. When you watch week in and week out, the teams that consistently play the right way, whether it’s securing the football or taking the football away, not making mental mistakes and really playing with an edge, with toughness and effort and all of the intangibles, the teams that can do that over and over and over and sustain, they’re the ones that have success in this league.”
On taking cues from Georgia’s defense and implementing that at UT…
“It starts with having good players. They have good players. They’re multiple with their schemes. They do a really nice job playing man-to-man. They deny the ball. They mix in a lot of different looks. You have to protect the quarterback. You have to be able to establish a run game a little bit to take pressure off the quarterback. You have to be able to throw and catch the football. There’s going be tight windows. There always is against teams that play good defense in this league. I’ve said it many times that the defensive backs place limitations on the defense. They’ve got good defensive backs and they place a lot of pressure on them.”
On who’s idea it was to implement the jumbo package and what they call it…
“Well, Jim (Chaney) has been doing this for a long time, so obviously it’s his idea. What we call it I have no idea. The name that we use might be 12 heavy.”
On the defensive line’s play over the last two weeks…
“We need to be more consistent up front. We need to play harder. We need to sustain for a longer period of time. I think we need to be tied in together with the linebackers and the outside linebackers. Our football team has a long way to go. We have to continue to work hard a improve. Knowing the players on our team and the people on our staff, we’re going to work hard to do that.”
On the offensive line’s improvement…
“There’s not one position on our team that doesn’t need to improve. We have to work hard to do that, particularly the offensive line. They understand that they need to work harder. They need to practice better. They need to finish better in practice. The way you practice is the way you play. It’s our entire team. We have to work hard this week at practice to create the right habits so we can sustain and do it for long periods of time.”
On Jarrett Guarantano’s and the receivers’ performances on Saturday…
“I didn’t feel like we got away from man coverage on Saturday. We need to improve at the wide receiver position. We need to play faster. We need to create some separation at the top of routes. We need to make sure we line up properly to make sure we get success. There were probably two plays in the game that I wish we would have thrown the ball away. Those could have possibly been turnovers, and we can’t have those plays.”
On the receivers needing to be better against man coverage against Georgia…
“I believe it’s a challenge for them. They will get man coverage not only this week, but every week in this league. It’s the way this league is. The windows are very small and there’s very little zone coverage. There are tight windows. You have to be able to separate and you have to be able to make contested catches.”