Butch Jones Preseason Press Conference

Head Coach Butch Jones: Opening Statement

“It’s really good to see everyone. I hope you had a great summer. Obviously, we are very excited to get things started. There are a few announcements that I would like to make.

“First of all, I would like to welcome Ryan Robinson, our Senior Associate AD for Communications, to our family. I had the opportunity to meet with him, and he is a great, great addition to our athletic department. We are also very fortunate to have Jason Yellin. Jason does a great job, and he is a great resource to me. I am very proud of Antone Davis. He will be elected to the Knoxville Sports Hall of Fame. Congratulations to Antone, and then, Eric Berry. He is another great story of resiliency and perseverance. That is what being a Vol For Life is all about. We are very excited about him. He is a tremendous story about how you meet adversity head on. Everything is about your temperament and disposition. He is a great illustration for all of us for when we suffer adversity.

“In terms of our football team, we are very excited to get started. Our first three practices will be in the evening because we have to win in the classroom first and foremost. There are a couple of days left in summer school, so we don’t want to interfere with that. We want to make sure we can practice in the evening. It kind of cut short things in preparation of training camp. We have a relatively short training camp, with school starting early this year, so we have to make every day count.

“This is the exciting time because you are really building your identity and forming your habits, everything about your football team, your chemistry and your toughness. Everything that goes into building a football team really starts in training camp because now your entire team is here. For us, we were setback a little bit with the 13 individuals being held out of spring football. We will be excited to get them back. They will have to play catch up, so to speak, not just physically but mentally as well.

“As I have said it, we can’t just be a year older; we have to be a year better. We have to learn from past experiences. We have to be a year wiser. What do I mean by that? It’s total understanding of situational football. How do we handle sudden change? We didn’t do a particularly good job last year with handling sudden change from a defensive perspective but also from an offensive perspective too. We are going to make sure we talk about sudden change and the importance of field position. We always talk about hidden yardage. For every 100 yards of hidden yardage, that is worth seven points in a football game. We have to really understand the importance of the kicking game and playing field position because we really believe we will be in a lot of close games this year, and that could be the difference between winning and losing, so our players have to understand field position.

“Along with field position is down and distance. Down and distance recognition is kind of the understanding of flavor or nuisances that go behind play calling, whether it is offense or defense. And then, the next area is red zone. We always talk about owning the red zone. On defense, we want to force the opponent to kick field goals. Offensively, we want to score touchdowns, and when you look at our SEC competition scoring offense, we were 27 percent in scoring offense in the red zone. That is inexcusable. We need to score touchdowns in the red zone. I believe, defensively, we were in the red zone 34 times last year, and we gave up 32 scores, so that is going to be a point of contention. We have always invested in it, but we will continue to invest in it even more.

“The other thing is who are our playmakers? Who are the individuals who really step up, perform and make plays in critical situations of the football game? It is not just on offense. You can have playmakers on defense. Whether it’s upfront, at linebacker or on the back end. That includes our special teams and return game as well. For us as a football team, still 64 percent of our football team is comprised of players that have been in one year or less in our football program. That still puts us as one of the youngest teams in all of college football.

“Again, we have to rely on the experience that we gained last year, but the three areas for our overall football team are leadership, the overall maturity and our overall health. Our players have to do a great job of being proactive, in terms of getting in the training room and taking care of their bodies. We have to really educate our freshmen and first-year players about how you take care of your body with recover and the nutrition that goes into it. I just spoke about our maturity, so now our leadership. Now, it counts. It’s football time in Tennessee. This is where it matters, and now, we are playing for something. The leadership has to continue to grow.

“The theme this year for our football program is ‘My All’. I think it is very fitting with the ‘I will give my all for Tennessee today’ sign. There is a difference between what we call a concept and a belief. A concept is just a concept. You see it, but you don’t believe in it. You don’t touch that sign every time you run out onto the field of competition as a good luck charm. You touch that sign because you believe you are going to give your all for Tennessee.

“Last night, at Orange Coat Night, every player stood up and gave their one ‘My All’. It was different, but we are going to hold everyone accountable to giving an extra ‘My All.’ We have to be one percent better every time we leave the practice field and the meeting room. We don’t need to be a finished product after practice one, practice five or practice ten. We just have to focus on the things that we can control and be one percent better. I can give you the greatest analogy of one percent better. We had a great turnaround last year in third down conversions. We finished eighth in the country and second in the SEC. Here’s an example of one percent better: if we had been able to get just one more stop on third down defensively, we would have led the country in third down efficiency. That is the illustration of one percent better. How are you getting one percent better when you step off the field or leave the meeting room? So again, we stress that to our players.

“In terms of injuries, LaTroy Lewis had his knee scoped, and that went exceptionally well. He could be out two weeks or three weeks. We fully anticipate him being available for the Bowling Green game, but he will miss the start of camp. Max Arnold will miss the start of camp. Andrew Butcher will miss the start of camp as well. We have no timeframe for Arnold or Butcher on their returns. Austin Sanders will be limited. Preston Williams will not practice, as we await NCAA certification on him. That will be an ongoing process with the NCAA, so I have no timeframe for him in terms of practice.

“Another individual that I would ask that Vol Nation and everyone still keep in their prayers is Zach Stewart and his family, as they go through something that’s very, very challenging. Zach will be delaying his enrollment, so he won’t be available for the start of camp, but we will welcome him when he feels he’s ready to come back. And I just ask that you keep him and his family in all of your thoughts and your prayers, as they go through something that’s very hard and very challenging in their personal lives.”

(On Von Pearson’s status)
“Same status, nothing has changed in regards to Von.”

(On Von Pearson’s return)
“That’s all speculation, again right now nothing has changed, and we’ll continue to address the situation as it does change.”

(On No. 2 quarterback)
“It’s imperative. And as we found out, you can never have one quarterback or two quarterbacks, you have to have as many as possible to compete at this level, so again the repetitions will be at a premium. Jauan Jennings is going to start off gaining valuable repetitions at the wide receiver position. We’ll continue to move him around, he’ll still get some repetitions at quarterback. I think Quinten Dormady has had a very productive summer. Obviously the reps that he gained in the spring were extremely invaluable, but we have to give them a number of opportunities to be able to provide confidence that and see what they can do, but I’m excited about Quinten and I’m excited about Sheriron (Jones) as well.”

(On Malik Foreman)
Malik Foreman will start off at the defensive back position, and then he’ll be evaluated each and every day just like all of our DBs and our wide receivers, and then whatever he can do that best fits him, but also helps our football team win, and that’ll be an ongoing decision. And to Malik’s credit, we met yesterday, and he said `Coach I’ll do whatever it takes to help the team win’, and that’s kind of the mentality I like to see on this football team.”

(On nature of Von Pearson’s suspension)
“Both (school and team suspension).”

(On what he’s learned about his team this summer)
“You’re right, you are limited. And I do think at times that’s very healthy, I think they need a break from the coaches, as do the coaches from them. It also it allows for your team to grow in terms of leadership. We always talk about being a player led team, being a player coached team as opposed to a coach coached team. I think the summer months lend themselves to that, but as the closer that camp gets, then you use the rule with watching video to your advantage, and really working the mental aspect of the game. And we’ve had a very productive summer, we’ve had a number of individuals have PRs, personal record, and we’ve really formed some strong leadership. We still aren’t there, we still need even more leaders to emerge, you can never have enough, but I like our excitement, I like our mentality, and I thought our team really grew together this summer because of that.”

(On Charles Mosley’s status)
“He’s on the team and discipline will be done internally.”

(On candidates for middle linebacker)
“That is a position that obviously is going to be extremely competitive. You look at a number of individuals that are vying for that with Kenny BynumColton JumperDarrin Kirkland Jr.,Gavin BryantDillon BatesJakob Johnson we get back from injury who had some valuable repetitions there. So, just like John (Brice) brought up the number two quarterback, it’s also solidifying who are Mike linebacker is going to be, and also are backups at that spot as well.”

(On comfort level with a younger team, this year compared to last year)
“A lot more comfortable, although we still have some unproven areas in our football program. When you look at the defensive front, we have to be very very careful that we don’t put too many expectations on freshman that have never played one snap of college football. They all develop differently. So we have some unproven areas, but also we have more proven areas than we’ve had in the past. You look at the quarterback position, what Josh (Dobbs) has been able to do. So again, I think we have more competition across the board. When you look at our offensive line. We are able to put a two-deep of all scholarship players. That’s the first time that that’s happened since we’ve been here as a staff. So that should be a position group that has great competition across the board. We also have some unproven areas that we need to find out who those playmakers are going to be at those certain positions.”

(On deciding early enrollees)
“We let them decide on their own. It’s kind of changing landscape of college football, is the early enrollment and it started off our first year at Central Michigan I believe we had four. I think it takes a different type of person. We’ve led the country in early enrollees the last two years, I believe we’ve had 23 or 24 combined. I think it takes a special person, I believe they have to have a high level of maturity, because when you look at it. All their friends are in high school, and they’re in college, and they’re in a very structured program, they’re in college courses, they’re in a program like this with a lot of high demands in terms of time management, but also, you need to have the resources in the program in place for those individuals to be successful. This year’s class had a 3.0 (GPA) overall in their first semester of college courses and we have a program in place with the Thornton Center, with the coaches, with the mentoring and the monitoring of their progress. We have a very strong program that helps them get off to a great start, but we leave that up to the individual (early enrollment), we never push that upon a young man.”

(On comfort level with expectations within the program and what he has seen from Curt Maggitt and Joshua Dobbs from a leadership perspective)
“A strong level of confidence going out on the practice field. From our hideaway to we just finished an organizational meeting right now on the structure of practice. Right down to our managers being in official jerseys, to having the chains, to having a full working group of officials on the field, to our players knowing where to go on the practice field. That’s all in place, and that’s part of the culture. The capacity for work, the work volume, the expectations, how we run the minute we hit the field, where they stretch. That’s all in place and it’s very comforting. You can never assume. That’s why we revisit everything. Our support staff has done a tremendous job. Even in educating our students worker, and everyone who associates with our program.

“In terms of Joshua Dobbs and Curt Maggitt, their leadership continues to be born. That’s part of our welfare and development program, something we take very seriously here. And we spend an inordinate amount of time on leadership. It’s also creating leadership opportunities for them. Last night was a leadership opportunity, not just for those two, but for everyone on our football program, particularly for our players staff. I see those two continuing to grow in terms of leadership.

“All leadership is influence. And that’s why there is good leaders, and that’s why there is poor leaders. But they have the ability to influence one way or the other.”

(On leaning on Ike Brown)
Ike Brown is one of those quiet MVPs, and Ike Brown has meant everything to us. He’s done a great job working hand-in-hand with Antone and our Vol For Life program. Ike heads up our personal growth and development program. He understands what our players go through on a daily basis. He was an outstanding player at the collegiate level. He played a number of years of professional football in Canada. He’s also a former player of ours, and he’s meant so much with running our 4th-and-1 program. Our players trust him and they believe in him, our parents trust and believe in him and we all do. His work in our football program has been invaluable.”

(On toughness in practice)
“Great question. It’s kind of like the age-old question on development. I’ll give you the analogy: it’s like getting in the pool. You’ve got to get in the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. And so usually your toughness is born in the weight room. Part of it is on the field of play in spring ball. That’s why having those 13 individuals miss kind of set back our growth and development as a football program, but you have to pick your spots. You can still be physical in a controlled environment, whether it’s individual drills, whether its 9-on-7 drills or pods of 3-on-3, or 1-on-1s. That’s something that we take pride in. You know in this conference, it’s a line of scrimmage league. Your toughness is challenged on each and every snap.

“Also, from a toughness stand-point it’s also psychologically as well. So there’s so much more than toughness in physicality. It’s emotional stability. Being able to go through adversity, being able to persevere. That’s a by-product of toughness, and what we call our T-Tough program.”

(On right and left tackle)
“Again it’s going to be one of those positions that highly competitive. I put it in the same regards as middle linebacker, the No. 2 quarterback. So we’re going to move people around, and our job in what we end training camp … we have to find the best five that are going to play winning football for Tennessee. Not only the best five but No. 6, No. 7, and No. 8 and also continuing to develop youth in that spot. But that’s going to be critical, as we know it all comes down to protecting the quarterback. We stress negative yardage football plays. We had way too many negative yardage football plays last year, so again, that’s another point of contention as we continue you move forward.”

(On Coleman Thomas)
“He’ll be one of those individuals that’s going to be going through the evaluation of being in the top five. So Coleman will play center, but he’ll also get reps at tackle as well. And that is another individual who has benefited from the repetitions he gained last year. And he has to become a wiser football player, which he has, but we’ll move him around to find the best spot in which he can help this football team win.”

(On the red zone and Joshua Dobbs)
“We expect us to improve greatly on both sides of the football. Again it’s part of taking those experiences and what you learned last year and applying it to this year, in taking care of the football, and managing the offense. I think Josh will rely on those experiences quite frequently, very heavily, but I expect us to be much better.”

(On Ralph David Abernathy IV)
“Well, we’ll know a little bit more tomorrow, and really you’ll know more when the pads come on. It’s great to go out there and run around in helmets, but football is a game that is played in pads. But it’s a great foundation, a great starting point with the first two days in helmets then graduating into shells, and then getting to day five in pads. But, Ralph is an individual who knows our scheme. He understands the standards, the expectations. But what he does is he brings depth, he brings knowledge and experience as well.”

(On position changes)
“Right now I would say it’s just Malik [Foreman]. We’re pretty settled in at the position groups. Now, if you have some catastrophic rash of injuries you find yourself looking around. But for the most part, I think our football team is pretty settled in terms of what position they will be lining up. I would say Malik Foreman is the only question mark right now. And I told Malik that’s it’s a compliment to him. That young man has come a long way from his first year as a freshman and now he’s looked in the eyes of both sides of the ball that he can help us and I think it’s a tribute to his work ethic and the way he’s matured as a young man in our football program.”

(On the health of Trevarris Saulsberry)
“Trevarris is going to be touch and go. He’s no where near 100-percent and it’s going to be what his body can handle. We’ll know more when training camp hits [if] can he handle the daily grind. So, for him it’s really going to be a play-by-play, hour-by-hour, practice-by-practice situation with him.”

(On the 13 players coming back from injury)
“They’ve all been cleared to participate and they’ve all been cleared to practice. Yes, they are on a maintenance program. One individual’s ahead of the other, but they’ll all be out there, day one, practicing. They’ll be managed day-to-day. We have to do a great job, which we will, of really managing their workload, really understanding where their bodies are. A lot of times with the excitement, you overdo it your first couple days of practice. That’s why we’ve really structured and laid out the practices that we build up and we work to get that one percent better. They will be on a maintenance program. They’ll be very highly visible in terms of us managing it, and just having communication with our training staff and Jason McVeigh which we do anyways.”

(On the realistic expectations for Shy Tuttle and Kahlil McKenzie during camp)
“Well, we’ll see. Obviously, we know a little bit more about Shy, just from having him in spring football. Kahlil has done everything that we’ve asked of him in the summer months. Now, we need to take the weight room and apply it to the practice field. We’ll know a little bit more as camp continues to progress.”

(On the maturity of Kahlil McKenzie and if it was a surprise)
“No. That’s Kahlil McKenzie. The greatest story about Kahlil is his first day on campus. It was when the United States Military was here, the program to work with leadership development with our football program. That was his first indoctrination of the summer of being a Tennessee Vol. It was remarkable that he was able to participate and go through all that, mentally and physically, with that group. He’s worked exceptionally hard. The thing about Kahlil, he’s very consistent, you know what you’re getting each and every day. He’s very mature beyond his years.”

(On the concern of the depth at the receiver position)
“That’s one of the areas we’re concerned with. That’s why, not only with those two, but Jason Croom [and] Josh Smith, we have to do a great job of really managing them, and making sure that they don’t do too much early. Both of those individuals are very prideful. They’re going to want to compete in every single period and go there, and we have to do a great job as coaches, which we will, of managing them. That’s why Jauan Jennings comes into play, and that’s why Malik Foreman is still in the consideration for playing that position as well.”

(On the competition at the punter position)
“Another position. You guys have hit all the competitive positions. Same thing, it’s going to be extremely competitive. We have to do a great job of putting our punters in competitive situations in a competitive environment each and every day. From Tommy Townsend to Trevor Daniel, across the board, we’re going to be competing every day. Everything will be charted, and that’s why the importance of field position comes into play, and being able to flip field position. Part of playing great defense is protecting your defense, and it starts with no three and outs on offense and it starts with playing a field position game. So, the punting situation is going to be absolutely critical.”

(On the comfort and confidence level among the offensive backfield positions going into camp)
“[We’re] excited to see again the maturation of the running back group. Jalen Hurd has had a very good offseason, he’s about 242 pounds right now. He’s really developed into a leader. Alvin Kamara continues to impress [with] the way he’s changed his body. Those two kind of feed off of each other. Alvin is another individual who’s really elevated his game in terms of leadership with this football team. I’m excited to see what John Kelly can do. So again, you add Ralph David [Abernathy] to the mix, you add Joe Young to the mix, so I think we’ve really helped ourselves in terms of quality depth there, but [we’re] excited to get them on the field and see what they can continue to do.”

(On Kyle Oliver still being on the roster)
“He should not be on the roster.”

“Thank you. Good to see everyone.”

Source: University of Tennessee