What Tennessee outside linebackers coach Levorn 'Chop' Harbin said on Tuesday

What outside linebackers coach Levorn ‘Chop’ Harbin said during his press conference on Tuesday, as No. 17 Tennessee prepares to go to Kentucky for Saturday night’s 7:45 p.m. Eastern Time start on SEC Network at Kroger Field in Lexington:

Tennessee’s front not being able to sack Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson 

“Number one, I mean, Alabama has got a great offense line. Got a couple of guys that are probably going to be first-round draft picks. But there’s some things that I can do better to help the guys, that I have to coach up this week. And the guys were in position a couple of times. Didn’t finish like we would like to, but we’ll clean it up this week and we’ll move on, being better than what we were last week.”

If he’s harder on Tennessee players after that kind of game or if it’s just a matter of teaching

“I’m the same every week, but also you gotta go back in there, evaluate what you’re doing, and maybe be a little bit more tedious about certain things. And that’s where I had to do this week. And also gotta work on the little things, and I have to keep coaching it. And for those guys, the biggest thing is finishing. Finishing rushes. And I gotta coach that part up and teach them how to finish too. So that’s on me. That’s not on them. That’s my job. And no, I don’t change from week to week. Wins or losses, I treat the same, to be honest with you.”

If multi-sack games and success in Tennessee’s defensive front can help build on itself as the season goes on 

“Every snap the guys believe they’re gonna win. That’s what you got to first put in their mind, that they can win every everywhere. And last week they were a little disappointed with the outcome of production. But they also, when we went back and watched the film, they saw what they could have been successful and they weren’t. So it wasn’t like they were just so much better than us. Now they did have some good — they did a couple of times do a great job with their sets and with their hands. And we could have been a little bit more violent, but they saw where they could have done a better job and been more productive. So, I mean, we’re not worried at all about moving forward.”

The progress Tennessee’s Jordan Ross has made from the beginning of the season until now

“I’m very pleased with him, from him understanding how to play. He’s got better every week, to be honest, which I said this a couple weeks ago. I mean, he was showing it on the production side, on the stats, but he is doing a great job. He’s a young man that plays harder than anybody in my room. I can honestly say that. They will say the same thing. He’s just got to learn how to do the little things. And he’s working on it diligently every day. So he’s got a chance to be really good and he can take another step and he will take another step. And I think he got a chance to be a really, really good football player.”

What Tennessee has seen from Kentucky’s offense

“Well, first of all, we’re playing to stop the run. They’re a very physical team. They like to get the ball on the edge. Running backs run hard. The tight ends and tackles, they’re very physical. They do a good job with their hands. They’ve got a really good old offense line coach that we’ve been facing when he was in Kentucky before he went to Alabama and he’s back at Kentucky. So we’ve got a lot of respect for him. So we know we’ve got a challenge ahead in the run game. And then also they do a great job on play-action pass. So we got to do a great job playing run and then trying to convert versus the pass.”

Tennessee’s run defense having more success against Alabama than in recent games

“Just executing the game plan that Coach Banks and the rest of the staff come up with. Just doing a better job executing the game plan, getting the guys to do the little things and the guys doing the little things. So that was the biggest thing. And we just got to continue to progress from that point and also continue to do a better job of tackling too. We’ve done that every week from week one to now. So trying to do a better job from that part too. Coaching it up, the guys performing.”