Tennessee football: Notes from Vols media presser for Monday, Oct. 8
Tennessee football is prepping for the Auburn Tigers off its bye. Here are our takeaways from Volunteers head coach Jeremy Pruitt’s Monday press conference.
After a 2-3 start to the season with a brutal schedule but also lots of embarrassment, Tennessee football is coming off its bye week without anything getting any easier. The Vols’ next match-up is on the road against the Auburn Tigers.
Rocky Top would hope that during the off-week, UT was able to fix a lot of things. That’s going to raise the expectations for this team as they face a Gus Malzahn program that is starting to reel. At this point, fans are just hoping to stay competitive in a game.
In Jeremy Pruitt’s Monday press conference, he addressed some of the issues facing this team. Let’s see if his comments are encouraging or more depressing for Tennessee football. Here is the full press conference video, and you can see our takeaways summarizing it below.
1. Trevon Flowers the only real injury, leading to Todd Kelly Jr. talk.
This is a big deal. Tennessee football has questionable depth in the secondary, which is why Jeremy Pruitt is using so many freshmen. However, Trevon Flowers was coming on at safety. But he’s now out for a few weeks with an injury, and it brought up the next major question about Todd Kelly Jr.
It looks like Kelly’s finally getting more back into the offense, and with Flowers out, he even has a better chance to play. There’s no reason to bet against him at this point, and Pruitt noted that he played on special teams against the Georgia Bulldogs. So with Flowers out, Kelly could finally see more action.
2. Improving on physical plays was clearly the focus of the bye week.
Jeremy Pruitt gave enough quotes to show that this was a focus, and that’s a good thing. We’re talking about the trenches and tackling. Here’s the first thing Pruitt said when asked about what he worked on during the bye week:
“We worked really hard on tackling. We worked really hard on the fundamentals of blocking and block protection.”
Later, when asked specifically about Baylen Buchanan, Pruitt talked about him playing more physical. So it’s clear that was a focus. Given the horrendous first half play of the offensive line through five games, the trenches made sense. And with running backs falling forward every play against the Vols, tackling was key too.
3. Trey Smith is staying put up front.
We wrote last week that Trey Smith should move back at guard, as he was a superstar there for Tennessee football when playing it last year. But it looks like Jeremy Pruitt’s staff is going to keep him at tackle for now. At least, if they’re serious about him staying in one spot, well, that’s been his one spot to this point. Here’s what he said about Smith Monday:
“I think if you look back last year he played a lot of different spots on the offensive line. We’ve kind of put him at one spot to leave him there, let him get good at, gain confidence.”
That makes it clear that Pruitt wants Smith to stay at tackle for now. So for better or worse, see how things shake up again on the left side of the line Saturday.