Head coach Butch Jones, along with players Micah Abernathy, Corey Vereen, Aaron Medley and Josh Malone, took part in Media Monday.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee football kicked off Ohio game week with Monday’smedia availability at the Ray and Lucy Hand Digital studio.
Head coach Butch Jones reviewed Saturday’s victory over Virginia Tech at the Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol prior to discussing Team 120’s areas of focus entering Week 3. Following Jones, placekicker Aaron Medley, defensive end Corey Vereen, wide receiver Josh Malone and SEC Defensive Player of the Week Micah Abernathy spoke with the media during Monday’s press conference.
Butch Jones | Head Coach | Fourth Season
“As always, good to see everyone. I don’t normally like to do this, but I would like to step back a little bit and talk about the Battle at Bristol. First of all, thanks to Bristol Motor Speedway, everyone associated with their organization and our administration. I think it’s spectacles like that, that you go back. I hope everyone here – it’ll be our conversation as well with our football team – really appreciates what just occurred. I don’t think that could ever be duplicated when you look at everything from top to bottom; the way they handled the teams, to the national anthem, to our great fanbase coming out to the environment, the fireworks to the RV’s, the campers and the Vol Walk. We’ve heard that it was upwards of 70,000 to 75,000 Tennessee fans at our Vol Walk. I think that’s one of the things that makes Tennessee very special.
“There was a lot of hard work and effort that went behind the scenes to make this a reality. I think sometimes we take it for granted and you can never take anything like that for granted. College GameDay, national TV audience. You look at how far we’ve come in three years, to be able to play in front of that audience; to have our student-athletes be able to play in that type of environment. That’ll be something that they’ll remember for a lifetime. That’s a lifetime of memories. So again, I just want to say thank you to everyone for their hard work and our fans for coming out. College GameDay at 9 a.m. was spectacular. We always want to write about a lot of the negative things. Let’s write about all the positive things that are occurring here on a daily basis. To have the national stage like we had was truly, truly incredible.
“About the game now, very disappointed in our start. I think that’s something with this football team, we have to start faster. We’ll do some different things to try to manufacture that, like we do every week in practice. I didn’t think we maintained a consistent amount of intensity that I think that you need to play for over 60 minutes. The overall discipline, we can’t jump offsides on third down. All the things that it takes to play winning football, we have to get them cleaned up. Did I think we made progress from week one to week two? Yes, we made a lot of progress, but still a lot of work to be done.
“The things I did like; 31 unanswered points. I thought for the first time this year, we played complementary football in all three phases with field position. When you look at our defense, in the first three drives we gave up almost 200 yards, two touchdowns and a missed field goal opportunity. Then the next 12 possessions, we limited them to 72 yards, five fumbles and forced five punts. Again, it’s getting off to a faster start. Offensively, what I liked is we scored touchdowns in the red zone. Four out of five possessions in the red zone we scored touchdowns. We didn’t kick field goals. Five out of six of our touchdown drives were five plays or less, so we had some bigger chunk yardage plays, and we need more. So there is a lot to build on.
“As we know in moving forward, it’s a week-to-week season. The Battle at Bristol is over with. We are playing an Ohio U football team and an Ohio U football program that I know a lot about, obviously competing against them at Central Michigan. We played against them in the MAC Championship game as well. I have had the opportunity now to get to know Coach Solich and have a tremendous amount of respect for what he’s built in Athens, Ohio. You look at their coordinators, they’ve been together now for 12 years. You talk about consistency in a football program.
“They’ve built a great football program. They’ve been bowl-eligible in nine out of their last 10 years. Let’s not forget this is a team that lost to App State in their bowl game on a last-second field goal. They were way up at one point in the contest. They come in averaging 45 points per game. The thing that is going to challenge our maturity as a football team is last week they controlled the ball against Kansas, a Big 12 opponent, for 43 minutes of the game. So possessions are going to be at a premium. They also held Kansas to 26 rushing yards. I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. It is a week-to-week season and we have to make that considerable progress that we made from week one to week two into week three as we move forward.”
Micah Abernathy | Sophomore | Defensive Back | Atlanta, Ga.
(On being named the SEC Defensive Player of the Week following the Virginia Tech game)
“Coming into this season as a starter, I just wanted to do my best and help my teammates out and I believe I have done that so far. It’s an honor and a privilege and I feel blessed. I am looking forward to playing this week against Ohio and I am thankful for this but I am looking forward to this game.”
Josh Malone | Junior | Wide Receiver | Gallatin, Tenn.
(On his improvement throughout the years)
“I feel like I have made a lot of progress on the deep ball and I am trying to be strong with my catch and run the right way and perfect the technique of running the deep route. There is a lot that goes into it, a lot of adjustment, a lot of fighting off defenders, so i feel like I have made some good progression throughout the years.”
Aaron Medley | Junior | Placekicker | Lewisburg, Tenn.
(On how he approaches kickoffs and being the safety valve)
“I don’t want to have a linebacker mentality, but I do need to be there just in case the ball breaks loose. On Saturday I had two tackles, but I think overall our coverage team, we’ve got to get better. I’ve got to put the ball in better spots. Definitely room for improvement there.”
Corey Vereen | Senior | Defensive End | Winter Garden, Fla.
(On getting ready for Ohio)
“We treat every game the same. Obviously, it was a spectacle last week with the fans and everything but it’s a one-week season. We are treating Ohio like it’s the game of the week. Every team is the same for us. We attack whomever head on and play football.”
Sound Bites
Defensive back Micah Abernathy
(On covering teammate Josh Malone in practice)
“From a defensive stand point, a receiver like Malone is an advantage for the offense and he is a lot faster than people credit him for, which is why he is so good at the deep ball. He is a good route-runner and he is competitive and an all around type of receiver. I’m glad he is on our team.”
Wide receiver Josh Malone
(On muscling out defenders)
“I am looking for the ball. Someone has got to make the play and I would rather go up and make the play and make it easier for the quarterback. It gives the offense an extra spark of momentum that brings energy to the sideline and the defense gets hyped off of that.”
Placekicker Aaron Medley
(On kicking at Bristol)
“I would say Friday, the walk-through, I think that was huge. Just getting a feel for the depth perception because it is a little different with the fans being almost 100 yards away from you. But after that, it was fine and I just treated it like any other game.”
Defensive end Corey Vereen
(On what the defense needs to do moving forward)
“Personally, I would say consistency and that’s day in and day out. That doesn’t just mean in the game; that means in practice, in your film study and when you’re working out. Just being locked in every day. Snap for snap.”