WATCH: Tennessee hits practice field for week two of spring
Tennessee was back on the Haslam practice field on Tuesday morning. A light sprinkle fell on a cool crisp spring morning as the Vols did individual work during the open media session. Early in spring and the team is working hard according to defensive line coach Rodney Garner.
“Right now, I think the guys have a great attitude, are working hard, taking coaching and have attention,” Garner said. “At the end of the day, I was a little bit disappointed. I told them that I felt like at the end they slowly ran out of gas, and they started to stand around and weren’t competing. That’s when you have to find out who you are. When you’re faced with that adversity, we have to find a way to strain and tough it out. We have to continue to fight. That’s something we have to get better at.”
The defensive front is made up of several veteran players and Garner pushes for more from those who have been in the program.
“I would say that. Guys that are veterans that have been in the program and have been a part of this, which is our third year in it. Guys that you think are the better players or who they say are the better players, you’re going to be more demanding on them. You’re going to hold those guys to higher standards. I hope that we’re trying to hold the whole unit there. How we play and the number of snaps that we play, we need to find 10 to 12 guys that can play at the championship level.”
And those veteran players give him an experienced room that he loves to see.
“I think they know the routine. They know the demands. Obviously, they’re good with the younger guys with helping them who don’t quite understand, know the commands or know where I’m coming from. I think they can help smoothen the transition. With a bunch of guys back, we still have a lot of production that we have to replace. We have to have guys step up. That’s what we have to get going. We have to accelerate the learning curve, especially at the Leo position to replace all the production that Byron Young gave us. Just the steady play, people don’t realize how valuable LaTrell Bumphus was. When we go back and we’re looking at our cutups from this past season, he did a heck of a job for us. We have to have that guy that we can count on. That guy did everything right exactly how he was coached, strained and he was selfless and played for the team.”
Click the link below to watch the Vols during the open portion of Tuesdays practice.
