KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee football head coach Jeremy Pruitt stressed the importance of details following spring practice No. 11 on Thursday at Haslam Field.

The Vols, who donned full pads on a sunny evening in the mid-70s, will hold their second scrimmage of the spring on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium, and the first-year head coach wants his team to improve the little things.

“There’s a lot of little things that have nothing to do with ability, just details and execution,” Pruitt said. “You have to do it when things aren’t going well. It’s not always going to go your way, so you have to find some way to kind of turn it around. So, again, that’s being in adverse situations and we have to figure out if some of our guys are going to do a better job responding Saturday.”

Redshirt junior Quart’e Sapp and sophomore Will Ignont have received the bulk of the reps at inside linebacker in the Vols’ new 3-4 scheme, but Tennessee has seen veterans Darrin Kirkland, Jr., and Daniel Bituli see increased practice time as they return from injuries.

“Daniel is starting to advance,” Pruitt said. “He participated today, he practiced today. I’ve said we’ve got a lot of guys that are getting close, and if we practiced another week, we’d almost have everybody back. He’s one of the guys that’s out there. Darrin took the next step. He’ll probably be back next week, so it will be possible to get these guys some reps as we move forward.”

While Pruitt did not say if the duo would be available for the DISH Orange and White Game next Saturday, the pair returning to health will hopefully give Tennessee some depth and experience at the position this fall.

“It’s probably too early to tell,” Pruitt said. “I would have to see where we’re at by next Tuesday to get an idea. So, we’ll see, but it will be close, which is a good thing. Those guys (Kirkland and Bituli) are kind of anxious to get out there.”

Kirkland, a redshirt junior, missed all of last season with a knee injury, but he captured All-SEC Freshman honors as UT’s starting middle linebacker in 2015. Kirkland started 16 games in 2015-16 and has totaled 111 tackles in his career.

Bituli, a junior, led the Vols with 90 tackles in 2017, including 23 in the season-opener against Georgia Tech. Sapp finished fourth on UT with 78 stops a year ago, while Ignont showed flashed in six games as a true freshman.

Give a Hand to the Running Backs
While he didn’t name a frontrunner for the starting position among the group, Pruitt said he liked the hands of all of the running backs on the Vols’ the roster, including sophomores Ty Chandler, Tim Jordan and Trey Coleman, and redshirt freshman Princeton Fant – a converted tight end/wide receiver.

“All of those guys, you put them out there and they’ve all got good hands,” Pruitt said. “They have pretty good vision. They’ve got good enough speed. So, I think it’s too early to single any of them out. You can take Ty, you can take Tim, you can take Trey, you can take Princeton, you put them all in that one group, and they have good days and they have bad days. So, we have to find a little more consistency in all of them.”

Chandler saw the most action last season, totaling 305 yards rushing, while making 10 receptions for 108 yards as a backup.

Jordan played in all 12 games in 2017, but only had 11 carries. He did make eight catches for 65 yards, however.

Phillips Emerging as a Leader 
Senior defensive end Kyle Phillips has been a leader off the field for the Vols since he arrived in Knoxville from Nashville. Phillips was inducted into the Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Society last fall and has been a member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll in addition to traveling to Vietnam last summer as a member of the VOLeaders Academy. The fourth-year player has the potential to emerge as a leader on the field, too.

“I think that he has been willing to do anything that we ask him to do,” Pruitt said. “He makes very good grades. Every week on the academic report, I see all ‘A’s’. He is a very good student and a good kid. He’s been very willing to do whatever we ask him to do since I have been here.”

Phillips started seven games in 2017 and made 35 tackles, including 4.5 TFLs. He has played in 29 games in his career with eight starts.

American Idol Winner to Perform at DISH Orange & White Game
Nashville country music sensation Trent Harmon (Big Machine Records) will perform at the Toyota Volunteer Village in Lot 9 prior to the DISH Orange & White Game. Harmon won the 15th season of American Idol in April of 2016. His hit song, “There’s A Girl” is currently being played throughout the nation. Trent Harmon – There’s A Girl Video

Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt Press Conference Transcript – April 12

Opening Statement:
“Today we worked a lot of special teams situations. It’s one thing we’ve really tried to concentrate on. We’ve done a lot of drill work all spring. We’ve just now started doing some team stuff, just trying to learn some fundamentals and getting exactly what we want to get done. So, doing the team settings, it was new for some of the guys and we have to continue to do that and work on it the next few weeks. A couple of situations we worked today, I thought our offense performed a little better than they did on Tuesday. Defense, really both sides of the ball, are inconsistent. You have to be consistent, have to put it all together. So, we have to continue to work on that. I’m hoping to see that some Saturday at the scrimmage, see how some of these guys respond. We corrected a lot of things from last Saturday and hopefully we’ll see some improvement.”
On what areas he hopes to see improvement in since last Saturday’s scrimmage:
“Ball security. Huddle organization on offense, making sure that we get the correct splits at wide receiver, we’ve got the right alignments at tight end, the running backs are protecting the right guy, we’re identifying the right mike, where we’re throwing the football. There’s a lot of little things that have nothing to do with ability, just details and execution. Defensive side, we have to tackle, we have to strike blockers up front, we have to be consistent, have to learn to strain. It’s easy to do it when things are going well. You have to do it when things aren’t going well. It’s not always going to go your way, so you have to find some way to kind of turn it around. So, again, that’s being in adverse situations and we have to figure out if some of our guys are going to do a better job responding Saturday.”

On if there are certain players he is looking at as potential kick returners:
“That’s one thing about the return game. Lots of times we get all caught up in the scheme, but to me, over the years, the returners kind of make the return. You get a guy that’s dynamic back there that sometimes, you hardly have to block anybody, they just go. We’re still searching through it trying to get an idea. There is some guys that have experience from doing it before, but we’re really early in it. We’re repping a lot of guys in specialty, so we’ll see. It’s a little easier to tell out there when we scrimmage, so we’ll see a little more on Saturday.”

On status of linebackers Darrin Kirkland Jr. and Daniel Bituli:
“Daniel is starting to advance. He participated today, he practiced today. I’ve said we’ve got a lot of guys that are getting close, and if we practiced another week, we’d almost have everybody back. He’s one of the guys that’s out there. Darrin took the next step. He’ll probably be back next week, so it will be possible to get these guys some reps as we move forward.

On the possibility of Darrin Kirkland or Daniel Bituli playing in the spring game:
“It’s probably too early to tell. I would have to see where we’re at by next Tuesday to get an idea. So, we’ll see, but it will be close, which is a good thing. Those guys are kind of anxious to get out there.”

On team captain philosophy:
“Well, everywhere that I’ve ever been, and when I was growing up, the teams that I played on, the captains were selected by their teammates at the end of the year, which I think is a huge honor for guys to get selected by their teammates. It says a lot about them. So, I’m sure we’ll probably have captains by the week, based off of who we think are good leaders and who gives us the best chance to have success. Towards the end of the year, when the season is over with, we’ll let the team vote on it.”

On how you Coach Improvement in body language:
“I think you’ve got to hold them accountable. It’s interesting, you’ve got some guys when they make a good play their whole chest swells up and they kind of get that walk about them, but the same guy two plays later, whether he misses a tackle, throws an interception, drops a ball, misses a block, you look out there and he’s got his hands down. So, either you’re the guy with your chest swollen up all the time, or you’re the other way. So, you’ve got to learn to fight through it. It’s not always going to go perfect. So, you’ve got to play the next play. The best players are not perfect. They’re going to make mistakes, they all have, everybody does. So, you’ve got to learn to play the next play.”

On if this teaching is from experience or from putting players in adverse situations:
“I think you’ve got to address them. When it happens, you’ve got to tell them, and that’s what we try to do. “

On Princeton Fant being back at running back today:
“Well we saw enough with him at linebacker to know that he could do it if we had an emergency situation. With these other guys coming back and being able to take more reps, I wanted to make sure we had our best players on the field to compete against each other. I saw enough out of Princeton to know that if we got in to a situation where we had an emergency, we could train him to play that position, but I feel like he would have more success on offense, so we moved him back.

On Princeton Fant playing running back:
“Well, he’s learning the position. I think he played wide receiver in high school. He was recruited here to play tight end. We originally moved him to running back because of lack of numbers for the position. Watching in winter conditioning, he’s kind of had some athletic ability about him, and I like the fact that he weighs 225 pounds. I like big backs. I know from a defensive side, those big backs, over the course of time, they fall forward a bunch of times, and they can handle a lot more licks. So, he’s doing fine over there.

On what he’s seen out of Ty Chandler:
“All of those guys, you put them out there and they’ve all got good hands. They have pretty good vision. They’ve got good enough speed. So, I think it’s too early to single any of them out. You can take Ty, you can take Tim, you can take Trey , you can take Princeton, you put them all in that one group, and they have good days and they have bad days. So, we have to find a little more consistency in all of them.

On using tight ends and full backs:
“We have to figure out what our best personnel is. Once we figure out what our best personnel is, that is what we need to put on the field. We are trying to figure out if we have any tight ends. I’m talking about tight ends that can block, not line up out there and run pass patterns. If we are going to run pass patterns, I would rather put wide receivers out there. How many wide receivers do we have that are hard to guard? I wouldn’t say that there are a lot of full back on our team. We still have to figure out personnel and figure out who we are going to be.”

On Kyle Phillips:
“I think that he has been willing to do anything that we ask him to do. He makes very good grades. Every week on the academic report, I see all “A’s”. He is a very good student and a good kid. Very willing to do whatever we ask him to do since I have been here.”

On Alontae Taylor’s progress at corner:
“I think Alontae can play a lot of positions. He was a high school quarterback. He returned kicks. He’s not going to play quarterback here, so every position is new. He is going to be learning all of them. I think he has a little more experience playing wide receiver because he played more of that in high school, but he also played some defensive back. I think he has a lot of ability. It’s probably not fair to him because the kid met one day and we put him out there with the ones so we could see him guard the best guys. We did that to figure out if he can or can’t. he really don’t know what to do. That’s not his fault. He has really good ability. I think we are going to do it one more day and let him scrimmage with the defense and go from there. It’s one of these deals to build depth down the road. He told me today that he thinks if he does it for a few more days he will have it down and if we need him in the fall he can come help. You look back over the years, there has been sometimes when it’s late in the game and you have a jump ball situation, you want the guy with the best ball skills back there. If you want t throw the ball into the end zone, do you want a five-eight defensive back, back there jumping or do you want the guy that can go up and get the ball. It’s good for him to learn. I think he is probably the best wide receiver to learn how to play defensive back. We are going to decide after the scrimmage whether he needs to move back or wait.”

On whether or not he is looking for anything different in the second scrimmage compared to the first one:
“No. We are playing football. We are looking for the offense to take it and score and the defense to keep them from doing it.”

-UT Athletics