KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – With another big game looming this weekend, No. 6/8 Tennessee will look to build off its best all-around performance this season in a convincing victory over LSU and carry that momentum into Saturday’s top-10 showdown against No. 3/1 Alabama.
The Vols are coming off their best rushing performance of the year, totaling 263 yards on the ground in their 40-13 thumping of the Tigers down in Baton Rouge. Despite missing its starting left tackle, the offensive line was dominant in the win, allowing for junior running back Jabari Small to rush for a season-high 127 yards and two touchdowns.
“Anytime you can go into an away environment and run the ball, it’s big time,” junior center Cooper Mays said. “It helps when you have Hendon (Hooker) back there, he’s a good running quarterback, so that’s an extra threat to add. Just going out there doing our job, anytime you can go out there and execute it gives you good confidence going into the next week.”
UT knows in order to have success against the Crimson Tide’s talented front seven, they’ll have to bring that same mindset and mentality into the game.
“Alabama is always going to have a really good front seven as far as I’m concerned, and especially with the recent history and everything,” Mays said. “They’ve just got a lot of big guys that can run (and are) athletic. Just being able to fly around, they’re disciplined and they’re big guys that can play sideline to sideline.”
One thing that has helped the ground game be so effective is its ability to show different looks and change things up from week-to-week in order to keep defenses guessing.
“It helps a ton. Any time you can present eye candy or different ball carriers to a defense, it always kind of keeps you off balance,” running backs coach Jerry Mack said. “That doesn’t mean just the person back there standing next to the quarterback is always going to carry the ball, so it always presents a different picture for those guys.”
Much like the offensive line group, Tennessee’s defense is also coming off arguably its best performance of the year, racking up five sacks and nine tackles for loss while holding LSU to just 13 points.
Byron Young was named SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week after posting five tackles and a career-high 2.5 sacks to lead an impressive effort from the Vols’ front seven. The Big Orange know that it will take another strong effort from their front seven if they hope to knock off the undefeated Tide this weekend.
“We have to be conscientious of our path, we have to be conscientious of our footwork, we have to be conscientious of our eyes, our hat placement (and) pad level,” defensive line coach Rodney Garner said. “That’s when all those little things matter. You know Alabama is not going to go out there and beat themselves. You have to strain, and you have to play well. That’s the only way to be competitive.”
McGrath Earns More Recognition After Strong Performance at LSU
After being named the SEC Special Teams Player of the Week on Monday, UT redshirt senior kicker Chase McGrath earned some more recognition on Tuesday when he was named a Lou Groza Award “Star of the Week”.
The Newport Beach, California, native drilled 4-of-5 field goals and converted all four of his extra points. McGrath’s 16 total points were one shy of a school single-game record for points by a kicker. He is now 8-of-10 on field goals on the year and 28-of-28 on extra points.
The Vols and Crimson Tide will face off at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS. Fans can also purchase 2023 season tickets now by visiting AllVols.com.
Videos, transcripts and player quotes from Tuesday’s media availabilities are included below.
Defensive Line Coach Rodney Garner
On what contributed to the pass rush success against LSU…
“I think it’s probably a combination of it all. I thought we had some inexperienced d-linemen too. I thought the guys did a really good job of maintaining their rush lanes. We talked about that all week. Obviously, they have a very mobile quarterback. We talked about trying to make sure that we keep everything condensed. Make sure that we are aware and conscientious of the escape lanes. Obviously, that’s going to come into effect again this week too. When you are playing against those type of quarterbacks, we have to make sure that everybody understands we cannot rush above the quarterback. We have to be ready to come back and understand where he (the quarterback) is trying to escape when he feels pressure coming.”
On the progress of the defense and where the growth comes from…
“We are still a work in progress. The kids, they are young men that are buying in, but it is still going to come down to the details and doing the little things right. Like I tell them, the reasoning behind all the madness and the things we put them through and the things that we try to stress, is for moments like this, because every week is going to get better. It is going to get bigger. The fundamentals are going to come into play, and it is going to come down to the team that makes the fewest mistakes. We have to continue to improve. I think our kids are playing hard, but we have to play a lot smarter. We are still making too many mental errors in areas, things that we should not being doing that we have to clean up, and we have to understand why it is so important. If you have that A gap, you have to maintain it, keep it, and you have to be (aware of) how everything plays together. Just playing selfless. You have to understand my role, do my job. If I do my job, then the man next to me does his job, everybody does their job, then we have an opportunity to be successful. I think that is something that they experienced last week. So, hopefully we will continue to get more buy-in to guys understanding the importance of each individual role.”
On Dominic Bailey and Bryson Eason…
“I think that Bailey kid has come a long way from where he was last year this time. I think he has made tremendous strides. We need for him to continue to grow, continue to get stronger, and continue to strain to do things at a championship level. I do think that he is trending into the right direction, but by no stretch of the imagination is he a finished product. But I do like the way he is working. Hopefully he will stay on that path and continue to do things the right way so we can have success. And the same thing with Bryson. Bryson is a very talented young man. He has a tremendous skill set. He is still learning how to play defensive line. Unfortunately, he is playing d-line in a league that you need to be able to play at a high level. It is not really a good league to be a training ground. He is a kid that came as a linebacker prior to us getting here. I think we dabbled with him last year at the end, obviously you can see his body. His body is more inclined to be an interior guy. You have to be built to be a tackle in this league, mentally and physically. Just getting him to understand the mental aspect of having that mentality where he is going to go in and battle, strain, and fight 200-300 plus pounders every single snap. That is something that he has to embrace and understand that he can be really good at it if he would fix some of the nuances that he needs to work on fundamentally. We have to continue to move the needle in the right direction with all the guys, not just those two. Every guy in the room, we have to continue to get better. We have to coach them better too.”
On Omari Thomas’s performance and leadership this season so far…
“I think Big O has been consistent, but obviously if you go and talk to Big O, he will tell you too that there are a lot of things that he has to fix. He has to continue to work on being a natural knee bender. He plays too high. If he is going to be a d-lineman in this league, he has to play like a d-lineman. Don’t look like an o-lineman that we just have playing d-line. He is a tremendous young man that wants to please you and wants to do things the right way. I definitely think he’s totally bought in to what we are trying to do here, but now he has to fix the things as far as playing with better pad level, play with better knee bend, not being a waist bender, just being more heavy handed and striking, and just being more disruptive. That’s not just him. (Da’Jon Terry) has to do the same thing, (Kurott Garland) has to do the same thing. Like I stressed to them, we need big guys to play big. We don’t need big guys to play small. We could’ve just gone out and got a small guy if that’s what we are going to get. So, we need a big guy to play big.”
On Tyler Baron’s performance this year…
“Tyler just has to continue to grow. We were moving Tyler inside a lot on third-down situations, trying to take advantage of some of the things that we feel his talents are stronger at. Like I told him, I look at him a lot like Marlon Davidson, a kid I had at Auburn, a strong side defensive end. Obviously on third down, you like to be able to move him inside and try to create some mismatches on some pass rush situations. I think he’s buying more into that. There has to be a mindset there for him and with Tyler, the same thing. He came here from being a LEO outside drop guy, to moving to strongside end, to now even buying into playing some three technique. Even though we sit there and say rabbits package, it’s a third down type package, but you will see if you looked at it last week, there were a lot of times where we got into rabbits and stayed in rabbits for an extended period of time during the drive, so they have to be able to play first and second down too. Obviously, there isn’t an opportunity to rush the quarterback if you don’t play good on first or second down and limit the runs.”
On preparing players for the long haul of a successful season…
“One thing I always tell the guys, there are three things that don’t lie. That’s the film, that’s the mirror, and that’s the Bible. When they sit there and look at that film, no matter what they tell me or what they tell their parents, the film doesn’t lie. So obviously, I think it’s very evident to everybody that we have to continue to improve, and when you’re playing an opponent like Alabama and Coach Saban, it doesn’t matter who he loses from a player standpoint or from a coach’s standpoint. They’re sort of like a Mercedes Benz playing. That assembly line, everything that rolls off of it is a high-quality product, so we have to be high quality so we can even just go out there and compete with them. We have to be conscientious of our path, we have to be conscientious of our footwork, we have to be conscientious of our eyes, our hat placement, pad level. That’s when all those little things matter. Alabama is not going to beat themselves. You have to go out there, you have to strain, and you have to play well. That’s the only way to be competitive. Obviously, it’s good to be able to make corrections coming off of the LSU game. Obviously, there were a lot of things that we did that we needed to clean up. Obviously, it’s easier to clean it up when you’re coming off of a win. I think people are a little more receptive, and I think they receive the message a little bit better than if you were trying to clean it up with a loss. I think these guys are seeing it, they’re understanding that we have to get better, and unfortunately, we don’t have a whole lot of time. Every week, I tell them we want to keep our head down like a mule that’s out there plowing that row. We don’t want to look up. All we care about is keeping our eyes down on that row. We are just going to keep focusing on that, and let’s just try to get better day by day. Each practice, each game, let’s just see where this thing can be in the end.”
On how beneficial it is to play 12 defensive linemen on a regular basis…
“Obviously, you know with how fast our offense plays and the number of snaps we’re playing, it’s important that you try to keep the guys fresh. For me, I just think that if we get out there, if we ever run out of gas, we can’t refuel in the game. It’s just like an airplane. If an airplane runs out of gas in the air, it’s over. So, there is no refueling. I’m just trying to keep the guys fresh because obviously, we do have a standard of how we want to play, how we want to run to the ball. We want to play with relentless effort, we want to strain, we want to do all those things. We want to be able to play the fourth quarter like we played the first quarter. We have no chance of doing that if we empty the tank. We have to keep the guys fresh, just for morale. If a guy knows, ‘Hey, if I go out and I practice and I bust my butt, and I try to do things the right way, do things the Tennessee way, then I’m going to have the opportunity to get to play on Saturday.’ Hopefully now, you’re going to get a better quality of practice because they’re going to be able to get that reward on Saturday. Because they all want to play. None of them want to practice, but they all want to play, so that’s the nugget you try to dangle in front of them. If you want to play, you have to earn the right. It’s nothing that’s given to you. To whom much is given, much is required. The requirement is what you do during practice to prepare and show that we can count on you to go out there and play at a championship level.”
Running Backs Coach Jerry Mack
On how Alabama’s pass rush affects the running backs…
“In the SEC, every week is a challenge. Everybody has a guy up front or in the front seven that’s always going to be really good. For us, it’s really just more about making sure our eyes are in the right place from the running back position. Always having that responsibility of understanding who our assignment is. That’s where everything starts for us. Up front, it’s always going to be a battle. Just making sure that they’re set to the right people, making sure they understand the protections as they come in and out of the game. We’ll always do what we do, that’s never going to change. For the most part, making sure our footwork and eyes are always in the right place is going to be consistent for us.”
On how difficult it is for a running back to recognize a blitzing cornerback…
“It just depends on the scheme of the protection that week. Sometimes, you have a situation where your eyes start already into the boundary. Usually, that’s where they bring those corner pressures. A lot of times you have to scan all the way backside, so a lot of times from a running back position, you can’t be too anxious to get out because you have to make sure that no backside responsibility is coming. There could be a safety, there could be a corner, it just depends on the formation you end up getting. For the most part, it’s something that as you see it on film you really attune those guys throughout the week. Some weeks, we get a team that is high corner pressures or low corner pressures, so you can have more sense of urgency to get out sometimes. This week, you have to be ready for everything with these guys.”
On what was impressive about Jabari Small’s performance against LSU…
“Just the way that he finished the game. That’s one thing from last year to this year that we talked to Jabari (Small) about, was making sure you understand to take care of your body and be able to finish those football games. The second thing is the patience he ran the ball with. He was extremely patient on making sure he turned some of those plays that normally would go for one, maybe zero yards at times, to plus four or five yards. That comes from him staying on his track and making sure he understood how to stay tight inside the hip with whoever those pullers were. That’s one thing he’s been growing at this whole entire season. We’re a vertical run team. We want to try to make sure that we’re always ahead of the chains having plus-yardage, and he did a really good job of making some of those zero-yard gains into three- or four-yard gains.”
On how a different offensive line combination pushes the running game…
“We love it. We love to line up with those guys getting a push up front. You see one of the touchdowns that Jabari (Small) had down there inside the five-yard line, the entire offensive lines’ feet were all in the end zone. That makes it a lot of easier for us as a runner, because by the time you go two or three steps, you already basically have scored. It’s in those short yardage situations as well. In those short yardage situations, we were able to push the pile, move people, get movement, distortion or whatever you want to call it, we were able to create some kind of movement where grass was created for the runners. That’s always good.”
On how pass protection for a running back translates from high school to college…
“From the running back perspective, as far as a young guy in pass pro, that’s always going to be difficult. Just for the simple fact of training your eyes. A lot of those guys in high school, they’re such talented runners that they don’t even think about pass pro. A lot of high schools don’t even ask them to pass pro, just for the simple fact that they want to make sure that they get the best out of them when they get the chance to give them the football. That’s one thing that the (Dylan Sampson and Justin Williams-Thomas) of the world are still continuing to learn about, exactly where they’re supposed to place their eyes. When they get to the right responsibility, it’s really more about being physical and moving your feet as well. You have to have great feet, great hand placement and all of those different things, because if not, it’s not going to come out successful for you.”
On Jabari Small’s patience in the run game and how difficult it is to grasp the importance of begin patient…
“It’s really hard; especially when you don’t come from that world that we’re living in. Our system is a little bit different than a lot of people across the country. You take a guy that’s a young guy, that’s a high school guy, a lot of times they want to rush everything, especially the speed of the game. The bodies are moving extremely fast crossing your face. To ask a guy to slow down his mental, ask a guy to slow down his footwork some, to make sure he can’t understand if you don’t slow down, you’re not going to allow those linemen to get the second level. They’re not going to be able to deliver those blocks for us. That’s extremely hard. Jabari has a lot of experience, playing running back for a very long time with his high school and college. He’s been able to see a lot of different looks. Now, he has a better feel. He really feels bodies well around him. Jaylen Wright is still growing as a runner. He’s starting to feel that a little bit more as well. Sometimes the plays will take you outside just because you have some patience about yourself, but for the most part, we’re always trying to fit those back inside.”
On what Dylan Sampson learned from his missed block that allowed a sack at LSU…
“Great learning moment. He made the best out of it when he picked up the ball and went ahead and turned it into plus yardage. For the most part, he just never got his eyes to the opposite side, and that’s one thing we talk about. In that environment, big-time environment, LSU, he’s back at home, he gets his eyes fixated on one defender as opposed to understanding he has a secondary, another read to that entire protection. He just never got his eyes back over there and by the time he saw it, it was too late. But he didn’t make a bad play worse. He picked up the ball, got vertical and turned it into something positive. That’s something we talked to him about on the sideline and obviously, (Hendon Hooker) talked to him about it. That’s something that, he was embarrassed, and to make sure that it never happens again, he was in tune for the rest game. He’s been in tune in practice this whole week as well.”
On the variety the team has shown in the run game…
“It helps a ton. Any time you can present eye candy or different ball carriers to a defense, it always kind of keeps you off-balance. That doesn’t mean just the person back there standing next to the quarterback is always going to carry the ball, so it always presents a different picture for those guys. Also, having (Hendon Hooker) as a threat as a runner, too. That’s always going to be really one of the best things that we do. Now, it just takes a little more pressure off us as a runner, so those guys don’t fit the box so fast, those safeties can’t be as aggressive because you have Hendon back there who can run or throw it, especially on the play-action pass. That’s always going to be good for us, if we can try to distribute the ball to different people.”
RS-Senior DL LaTrell Bumphus
On how this run of success feels…
“I am definitely taking it all in, especially with it being my last year. Through all the ups and downs, at times it has been hard, and a lot of times you might ask yourself, ‘what am I still doing this for?’ Now it’s just been nice to finally see all the hard work pay off, and just sticking things out because in life, it’s not going to always be easy, so when it gets hard you got to just stand up tall and keep fighting.”
On the key to stopping LSU’s run game last week…
“Just playing vertical, playing hard and owning our gaps. We really stress a lot in practice owning our gaps, too. Every day in practice, we got good running backs and a good quarterback, so we are well prepared every time we go into each game.”
On Byron Young’s great game versus LSU…
“It was great. Personally, I love seeing my brothers out there doing well, too. I think if we all work together, everybody is going to feed off of that. His success is just the start for all of us, so we are just going to feed off of that and let that be our motivation for all of us to do well.”
Junior OL Cooper Mays
On the team’s success running the ball against LSU…
“Anytime you can go into an away environment and run the ball, it’s big time. It helps when you have Hendon (Hooker) back there, he’s a good running quarterback, so that’s an extra threat to add. Just going out there doing our job, anytime you can go out there and execute it gives you good confidence going into the next week.”
On how to keep treating every game the same as the winning streak continues…
“I would say the big thing is keeping an even keel kind of mind and spirit. I’m not a guy that gets too high or too low, so if you’re whole team kind of stays on point and gets the task at hand done, then you’ll stay on track.”
On how talented Alabama’s front seven is…
“Alabama is always going to have a really good front seven as far as I’m concerned, and especially with the recent history and everything. They’ve just got a lot of big guys that can run (and are) athletic. Just being able to fly around, they’re disciplined and they’re big guys that can play sideline to sideline.”
Senior LB Aaron Beasley
On what has changed this year for him that’s helped his on-field performance…
“I’d have to say my focus every day and my preparation every day. I’m obviously more comfortable (and) more confident at the position. I have to say my routines and my preparation throughout the week prepares me for the game on Saturday.”
On the dynamic between linebackers and rotation at position…
“We’re all playing, we’re all making plays, we’re all working together. It’s whoever is out there, go do your job, that’s what’s expected.”
On keeping with routine as the games become bigger…
“Just keeping the main thing, the main thing. Of course, when you win more, the bigger the games get, but we have to act like we’ve been here before. Do our job, prepare the same way every day, just go about our business like we’ve been here before.”
-UT Athletics
