Tennessee Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt

Opening Statement:

“As cool as it was out there today, we should have left practice open the whole time to see who was brave enough to weather it out there. It was the first day in pads. We had a lot of balls on the ground. It was a little wet out there, but it was good for us though because we may play in a game like this. We had some guys that probably performed a little better than others. There were a lot of mature guys. They are used to a little more adversity and getting up. The routine is different. I think we learned a good lesson today for everybody associated with the program. We learned how to get up and get going.”

On if the first two practices have given any insight to what he will do in the spring game:

“I think for the spring game, we talked about putting the guys in adverse situations. We have a lot of inexperienced guys, so you’re not going to know a lot about them. We’ll practice for eight days, then we’ll scrimmage, practice for two more, then we’ll scrimmage. There’s something about going out in the stadium and playing the game. One thing that we want to do, from the coaches to the trainers and managers, and everyone in the entire organization, we want to approach the spring game and actually play a game. We’re going to divide up the squad and play a game. We’ll actually go through the Vol Walk. We want to go through the same routine. We may even stay in a hotel on Friday night. We don’t want the first time we do it to be when we go to Charlotte. My challenge is for our fan base. The first two scrimmages aren’t open, but the spring game obviously is. The best way to put them in an adverse situation is to show up. That presence will create pressure which will prepare them for next season.”

On the main thing he has learned from the team that he didn’t know before:

“It’s probably too early to tell that. Today was the first day in pads. For a lot of it, before you watch the tape, it’s hard to get a good idea. I can say this, when we protect the quarterbacks, our quarterbacks have created some explosive plays. The key of the drill is we have to protect the quarterbacks. In the secondary, when we play good technique, we’ve had a chance to have success. Defensively, we made the rights calls, communicated and got lined up. I think the guys are learning to communicate better. I think the thing about guys in this generation is it’s hard to find guys who are good listeners. Listening is a skill. When you sit in meetings, they have to be able to take it from the meeting room to the field.”

On Darrin Kirkland Jr.’s update:

“Darrin had his knee cleaned up, so he will be back probably in two to three weeks. He had done really well, progressed and worked in the offseason. It was just a minor cleanup there, so he’ll be back and ready to go. He might even finish up and get to go the last couple practices of spring.”

On how Tyler Byrd and Carlin Fils-aime are performing in their new positions:

“Tyler and Carlin are learning what’s going on. Neither one of them played a whole lot of defense in high school, so this position is completely new, which is okay. I think just being around them, they are both good competitors. They have toughness, but there’s things about defensive backs that make it a learned behavior. They’ve got to kind of learn the movements and the skill set, but I think both of them have the skills set to contribute back there.”

On how he feels about his offensive line:

“Normally for an offensive line, it takes five of them to play together. The defense should be ahead of the offense. It doesn’t matter if it’s at Tennessee or wherever you’re playing, defense should be ahead of offense at this time. It takes 11 guys to do it together. Sometimes I think maybe if there’s a break down there in the offensive line, it makes the rest of them look a little worse that what it is. At the same time on the defensive side, the way we want to play, we’re a team that wants to square you up and strike you and build a wall trying to play defense from the inside out. I think it’s a little different than the philosophy in the past. Our guys are learning it. Both sides are doing a good job with trying to do what we ask them to do.”

On Jarrett Guarantano and Will McBride:

“I’ll tell you one thing Jarrett has done is he’s thrown the ball away. To me, everybody always talks about touchdowns and big plays, explosive plays and the quarterback running with the ball. He has the ability to do all that, but to me, the first thing a quarterback has to be able to do is take care of the ball. I think he and Will have done a good job so far trying to do that. They’ve not forced the ball. We’ve had some protection breakdowns just because it’s a new system and it’s everybody getting tied together. When it broke down, they didn’t try to do more than what they could do. They got the ball out of their hand and said we’ll play the next play. I think they’re going in the right direction.”

On a follow-up about Tyler Byrd’s new position:

“A lot of times when you take offensive players and move them to the defensive side, especially guys who played wide receiver, he’s used to looking at the quarterback. If you’re a big man-to-man team like we are and you’re playing corner, you can’t guard your man and look at the quarterback. Tyler has really good ball skills. He has toughness to him. We just thought after two days, it might be his best position to actually play safety because you play with a lot of vision on the quarterback and he can use his natural ball catching ability.”

On if listening can be a learned skill:

“To me, I think it’s a habit that you have to develop. We all do it. When you have conversations with folks you can tell when you’re talking to somebody if they’re engaged, they’re listening and they’re locked in. You can tell when you’re talking to them by their expression if they wish you’d shut up. If you look at how the guys communicate, this generation is all text or snapchat or all that and they’re looking at this stuff instead of having conversations and communicating this way. I think now it’s getting to be more of a learned behavior.”

On protecting the quarterbacks:

“That’s the hardest thing to do, protect the quarterback. You’ve got to get everybody tied in together. One thing about it is if you have one breakdown on the front, you might have the back or the tight end involved in protection and five out of six do exactly like you coach them to do but the wrong one has a breakdown, then you don’t even have a chance to give the quarterback a chance. When our guys have done a good job up front, our quarterbacks have done a nice job. They know where they’re supposed to go with the ball and they’re throwing it in the right location which is important. It’s where only we can catch it.”

On the defensive line’s ability to stop the run last season and any improvements he’s seen:

“We always go over our goals in the spring, so the first day of install we’re putting up what our goals are. Obviously, to win and hold them to a certain amount of gain are there and in each deal, we put where we were at in the SEC and where we were at in the country and who were the leaders in those categories. We weren’t very good, obviously. We’re trying to stress that with our players and I’m starting to like this team, being around these guys because I sense a lot of guys who are hungry and maybe have a chip on their shoulder. Not all of them, but maybe enough of them have it and maybe we can make it where it’s contagious.”

On guys playing some different roles, like Austin Smith:

“One thing that we’re doing is we’re kind of putting everything on the same install schedule. We’re adding something new every day. The fact that we have a day between practices, we can go back and correct and kind of start the next day over. Some guys learn a little faster than others, so the guys that learn it a little faster look better on the field, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the best player right now. We’re trying to make sure that we slow it down, keep it simple enough so we can truly gauge everybody’s football ability.”

On how he would describe Tyson Helton’s coaching style:

“Tyson is very detailed. He’s very demanding. I’ve sat in a lot of his meetings here with the players and he does a fantastic job. He’s very thorough. He goes through everything from getting the call signals pre-snap to indicators to protections. He really does a nice job. He doesn’t coach with his hands in his pocket I can assure you. He’s out there getting after them.”

On his scheme and possibly changing players from defensive ends to linebackers:

“I don’t know what everybody played last year. I don’t know what position they actually played last year. The guys we have at linebacker at inside are Will Ignont, Quart’e (Sapp), Solon (Page III), Shanon Reid and Dillon Bates. I don’t know if those guys are linebackers or ends.”

On Darrell Taylor and Deandre Johnson being linebackers:

“Oh Darrell, yeah, they’re outside backers.”

On Tim Jordan’s status and which of the January enrollees have stood out:

“Tim had to have his appendix taken out over spring break, so I think he’ll be back in a couple of weeks and maybe he’ll get the last six or seven days of spring ball. The young guys, we’ve got several guys in here who were mid-year. They’re all working hard and doing what we ask them to do. We haven’t had enough practices to really gauge a whole lot about if they’ll be able to help us this year. I don’t know that, but they’ll be able to help us one day.”

On the defensive backs:

“These guys stay up here watching tape all the time, so they’re hungry which is important. I think all of them want to be really good players. They have a lot of pride in Tennessee football which is important. Watching them out there on the field, they’re trying to do it the right way. We’ll be fine back there as long as those guys keep doing that.”

On the way he runs spring practices:

“We’re taking our practice schedule that we did at Alabama. When I went to Florida State, Jimbo (Fisher) did it the same way. When I went to Georgia, Coach (Mark) Richt did it the same way. Everybody I’ve ever worked for practices the same way we practice. It’s a college deal. It’s not my deal, I stole it from somebody.”

On Daniel Bituli and Will Ignont helping get guys where they need to be in this scheme:

“Daniel is not participating in team activities. He had an offseason surgery. He’s out there at practice. He does a lot of individual. He will possibly in another week be out there ready to go at the tail end. The good thing is that it’s equal for everybody. They all sit in the same meetings, so they’re all engaged. It’s challenging for all the guys but they’re doing a nice job trying to communicate and figure it out and get it done.”

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