Vols Open Week Three of Preseason Practice
Tennessee football returned to the practice field Tuesday afternoon to open its third week of the preseason as head coach Jeremy Pruitt met with members of the media.
Pruitt discussed the freshmen talent developing at running back behind the one-two punch of Ty Chandler and Eric Gray.
“Tee Hodge and Jabari Small have been really steady for freshmen,” Pruitt said. “They have a lot to learn. Obviously, every freshman does. Whether it’s pass protection or holding onto the football or staying on their feet in practice. Both guys are really good competitors. They’re very smart, they have really good hands, they’re instinctive. Both of those guys, they’ll both play this year.”
Defensively, Pruitt stressed the importance of developing toughness along the defensive front under new position coach Jimmy Brumbaugh.
“The one guy that I feel like has had really good practices every single day is LaTrell Bumphus,” Pruitt said. “The guy continues to come to work every single day. He’s trying to be at his best. Matt Butler is another guy. We’ve got to get other guys to raise to their level of play at that position, and that’s a choice.”
The Vols will walk through and meet on Wednesday before going through another practice on Thursday.
Tennessee opens its 2020 season on Sept. 26 at South Carolina. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET live on SEC Network.
Jeremy Pruitt Press Conference
2020 Preseason Practice
Tuesday, Sept. 1
Opening Statement…
“This is the third week of preseason practice – eighth practice – we had a little heat out there today, which was good for us, we haven’t had a whole lot this fall camp. I thought our guys pushed through it pretty well. We continue to get to work on special teams, which has been a priority because we had several days we had to go inside. Just the ball handling aspect – snappers, holders, kickers – just having an opportunity to continue to work that in live situations. Handling the ball in the back end, we feel like we’ve got some guys that have really good ability in the return game, but No. 1 priority is securing the ball. I still feel like offensively, I feel like our offensive line continues to improve every day, getting more and more guys that are playing at the right pad level, eliminating mental errors. One thing we’ve got to do is we got to be more aggressive up front defensively. We’re not creating enough negative plays. We’ve got to continue to improve on that. We’ve got to be able to get the ball out on defense.
“One thing that we did do this week is we launched our VFlight program, headed up by Ashley Smith (Assistant Athletics Director for Player Relations and Development). Ashley does a fantastic job. It’s a great initiative to really launch our players’ careers beyond football. It’s one of the things that when I first got here that was something that we didn’t have that we wanted to be able to start. For a couple of years, we really studied a lot of people across the country and tried to steal some ideas, but Ashley has a lot of really good ideas and we’re fired up about it. We feel like as we progress through this thing, we’re going to have the best program in the country when it comes to launching our guys’ careers after football, so we’re excited about that.”
On if he has put in place a plan in case any coaches are unable to coach due to COVID-19…
“We have not put a plan together, but just starting off offensively, if something happened to Jim (Chaney), we’ve got Tee (Martin), and Will (Friend), and Chris (Weinke), Joe (Osovet), Jay (Graham), all those guys could call plays, so it’s not an issue there and the same thing defensively. We got guys that are familiar with what we do so we’ll be fine.”
On if he’s surprised to still see players deciding to opt out this far into fall camp and what he’s seen from his pass rushers…
“I don’t know a whole lot about the opt-outs across the country, I just know about the guys on our team and we’ve had one. But again, like I’ve said before, we’ll support our guys in every way possible.
“When it comes to rushing the quarterback, we’ve really got to improve there. It’s something that we felt like in the offseason that – from getting the quarterback off his spot, improving our pass rush up the middle and finding guys that once they get on the edge can capture an edge and finish. In college football, the ball comes out really fast, so lots of times you can affect the quarterback more so up the middle than you can on the edge and we’ve really got to improve there.”
On what they have done to prepare for the possibility of multiple players in a given position group missing a game…
“We’ve already done some things since we’ve been here, playing a few guys on both sides of the ball or working them on one side. Last year, Quavaris Crouch played running back, Jeremy Banks has played running back, Aaron Beasley has played running back since he’s been here. We’ve used defensive players as tight ends in short yardage and goal line. You’ve got to be creative. I feel like if it gets to that point, my high school background will probably create an advantage for us. We’ve definitely talked about, ‘do we need an emergency guy at certain positions?’ In fact, I just actually talked to our team about that. It’s the reason we practice the way we practice, is to develop the entire team. We’ve always done that, so we’ll continue to do that, and it gives everybody an opportunity to continue to grow as a player.”
On the health of the team after the decision to cancel last Friday’s practice…
“Well we definitely had a few more (positive tests last week) than we have had in the last several weeks, so we opted to test again and make sure. Like I told you guys, the first priority is the safety of our football team. When we tested, we felt like we were in really good shape and so went ahead and practiced on Saturday and again today. We’ll continue to do that as we continue to test. Hopefully, as the season progresses, we’ll do a better job of preventing the spread amongst our team.”
On if it feels like the team is competing for a true national championship this season…
“Yes, absolutely. We can’t control how many teams play, obviously. We’re going to work hard to be at our best every single day. If there’s one thing we have to do as a football program, is work on consistency. I think our guys understand what the standard is but playing to that standard every single day in everything that we do, we’re not there yet. We’ve got a few players that do that on a consistent basis, but not near enough to where we want to be.”
On how important unity is for team success…
“I’ve always felt that, since I’ve been here, our players have been close. One thing about being away from here, these guys went home in March and didn’t come back until June. Not everybody came in June, it wasn’t until July we got everybody back. I think it’s a very important thing about this year – who can develop the chemistry to create that winning atmosphere, that can find ways to overcome adversity. It’s something we’ve preached about as a staff amongst ourselves. We feel like the relationships with our players, being able to overcome adversity – whether it’s something outside our building or inside our building – it’s going to be important this year. It starts with leadership. It starts with the coaching staff and with our player development guys and our weight room. We’ve developed a culture around here that everybody has a voice, but everybody respects each other and each other’s opinion.”
On the impact of the student-athlete led march last Saturday…
“Saturday was one day. It was a really, really good thing for our players and everybody that was involved. But, that’s one day. This is something, if we want to help create a change, it’s not only going to change for one day, but the next day, the day after that and generations to come. It’s something I personally believe in, our players on our team believe in, our coaching staff does. We’re going to continue to work on creating change.”
On the team’s confidence carrying over after last season’s success…
“The guys that have been in our program, whether it’s for three years, two years or this is their first year, the guys that have been here, they understand the standard we set when it comes to training, when it comes to going to class, when it comes to being the best you possibly can be. Obviously, knowing the standard and competing to that standard every single day is a whole different story. We have a long way to go. We have a lot of guys that can do it right now and they try to do it every single day, but we don’t have near enough to be where we want to be. So that’s something we have to continue to work on is consistency. We talked about this whole off season. We’re not there yet. We have to continue to challenge each other to get on the highest level.”
On what recruiting has been like with the extended dead period and travel limitations…
“Well to me there are two parts of recruiting that are really unusual. The first one is the evaluation part. Normally, you have spring ball and you have summer camps, whether they’re on your campus or at somebody else’s campus or somebody else puts on a camp that you can get verified information. You have track and field in the spring. You get to see them compete. You get to coach them a lot of the time when they play at your camp. It all helps in the evaluation process. Now you look across our country and there are very few states that are playing high school football. So, you’re trying to compare a player that has played this year to somebody that has played last year. There’s a big difference between a 16-year old and 18-year old, a 17-year old and an 18-year old. That’s one thing about recruiting that’s very unusual.
“The other part is, because of unlimited phone calls for this class, I feel like out of the guys we’ve recruited – some that are committed to us, some that are not, some that are not committed anywhere – I feel like I know their families. It’s been lots of phone conversations, Zoom calls. I’ve really enjoyed it, getting to know a lot of people. It’s kind of the ups and downs that have happened over the last six months. You get a chance to experience it. We’ve all had them. Everybody on this call, whether it’s in your immediate family or your extended family. I’ve enjoyed sharing that process with the people that we’re recruiting and really getting a chance to get to know a lot of folks on the phone.”
On the competition at running back and offensive tackle…
“Tee Hodge and Jabari Small have been really steady for freshmen. They have a lot to learn, obviously, every freshman does. Whether it’s pass protection or holding onto the football or staying on their feet in practice. Both guys are really good competitors, they’re very smart, they have really good hands, they’re instinctive. Both of those guys, they’ll both play this year. Fred Orr, a guy who is a walk-on right here from the state of Tennessee, is another guy. He played for us last year in several games. I think we played him in four games to redshirt. We played him on special teams, he is a guy that will contribute on special teams this year.
“We’ve got guys that have to compete (on the offensive line). One thing is most of our guys can play multiple positions. They can play guard or tackle. We have competition. One thing about it, Jahmir Johnson is a senior, Trey (Smith) can bounce out there and he is a senior. Finding guys to play offensive tackle is a priority for us. We’ve got to continue to grow and develop those guys.”
On if there are any drawbacks to having a spread-out fall camp …
“Well one thing about fall camp, anybody that has played college football that has experienced it, there are a lot of back-to-back-days. Right or wrong, you develop a lot of mental and physical toughness. We are not having one of those camps this year. It gives you an opportunity to see guys that can push through, that can practice when they are sore or when they are tired, can focus, can execute. The other part that I really like about this fall camp is that you get a chance to teach in-between each day, which has been very positive. So, it is very similar to spring practice, you practice a day, take a day off, you correct and walk through and do a lot of teaching, which I love doing and we have great teachers on our staff. That’s been really good.”
On competition at the safety position …
“One thing we really try to focus on is we need to create more turnovers in the deep part of the field. It is something that we hadn’t felt like we’ve done a very good job of since we’ve been here. We need to create more turnovers. We need guys that have range and we need guys that can erase. If you play aggressive on defense, there are going to be times in the run game that the ball is going to spit out there and you have to have a safety that knocks the guy down for a 7-yard gain. You got guys that have to be able to play man-to-man and be great tacklers in the open field. That is something that we really work hard on and we challenge our guys every single day. We’ve got some competition back there. Different guys are running with the ones every day and that’s a good thing. We need competition back there because we need more production at that position.”
On the defensive line …
“We’ve got guys that can play winning football. We’ve got to play with more toughness up there. We’ve got to play with more awareness. We’ve got to be more consistent. Again, that’s kind of the whole team. We’ve just got to continue to improve every single day. The one guy that I feel like has had really good practices every single day is LaTrell Bumphus. The guy continues to come to work every single day. He’s trying to be at his best. Matt Butler is another guy. We’ve got to get other guys to raise to their level of play at that position, and that’s a choice.”
