Opening Statement:

“When you go back and look at the tape from Saturday’s game, lots of things that we’ve done in games that we’ve won. We made mistakes in this game, didn’t give us a chance. We turned the football over. We only got one turnover. Had a chance a couple times in the red area to get off the field, to hold them to field goals and didn’t do that. Probably the first two times we threw the ball Saturday, had mistakes. One time in the seven-man protection, the running back picked up the wrong guy. Another time we had another seven-man protection and a miscommunication up front led to negative plays that contributed to us starting off slowly. Played 27 snaps I think the first quarter.

“Defensively, played those 27 snaps okay. As the game went, made a few mental errors, didn’t cover them as well as we needed to with the RPO game that they were running. Didn’t get a lot of pressure on the quarterback. On a positive side, I thought in the kicking game we had our best game of the year in kickoff return. We’ve continued to kind of break even or probably win the kicking game battle. We have to do that on both sides of the ball and we didn’t do that Saturday and a lot of that had to do with Missouri. Have to give those guys credit, they did a really good job against us.

“This week we have Vanderbilt. This is a very important game for everybody in this state. They have an experienced team offensively. Quarterback has been playing there forever, coach’s son, makes very few mistakes. They have good runners, take care of the football. Defensively, have a lot of ball hawks on the defensive side of the ball, give you multiple looks. I think probably in the turnover margin in our league, they’re up there at the top and solid on special teams. So, we need to find a way to improve our team this week, eliminate mistakes, tackle better, find a way to be able to run the football and create some explosive plays.”

On Emmit Gooden’s progression throughout the season:
“I thought Emmit (Gooden) probably played as good as we had anybody play on the defensive side of the ball. To be good on defense, you have to keep the edges, you have to build a wall, you can’t give up one-for-ones when it comes to the run game. You have to be able to get off the blocks. I thought he did a good job doing that. On the secondary, you have to be able to deny the ball, keep them cut off, keep them in front of you, make them earn it and we didn’t do that all the time. I thought Emmit played probably as good as anybody we had Saturday.”

On Ty Chandler being used in the run and passing game:
“We hadn’t played a lot of snaps. Two weeks ago, what we were doing was working pretty well so there was no reason to go for it. This past Saturday, a lot of things we were doing wasn’t working. We had a lot of problems in protecting the quarterback, obviously. We lost Jarrett (Guarantano) early in the game and then probably the score dictates a little bit too.”

On injury updates and what makes Vanderbilt’s Kyle Shurmur so effective:
“He has experience, has a really good understanding of what they’re trying to get done. He makes very few mistakes. He throws the ball where they can catch it and nobody else can. A lot of that comes with playing a lot of ball and he has. He grew up around the game and does a really good job.

“As far as Jarrett (Guarantano), he’ll be day-to-day this week and probably the same thing with (Marquez) Callaway.”

On Tennessee’s onside kick attempts:
“I think in all three phases you look for things you can possibly take advantage of. Saturday, kind of the way they lined up. That kick, if you kick it in the endzone, which Paxton (Brooks) has a lot, they get the ball on the 25-yard line and you’re probably thinking hey, if you kick the ball at the right spot, it’s going to take probably one bounce. If they don’t catch it on the first bounce, we probably got as good of a shot as they do of recovering the ball. If we don’t recover it, we’re going to lose seven to 10 yards. To me, the risk versus the reward in that situation, I think you do that. That’s what we’re looking for. You can look at it, I think we’ve had three kind of alternative kicks this year and probably had as good a shot or better shot than the return team in getting the ball. We just didn’t finish with the ball, so we have to find a way to do that.”

On if the onside kick is a predetermined thing:
“We know that we think it’s there. If we feel like it’s there, then it becomes about the timing of when do you do it. You look at it as you kick off and see if you think it’s there.”

On what offensive adjustments should have been made after looking at the film:
“Everybody in this league is obviously going to try and stop the run, make the quarterback beat you. Lots of times in the run game, you can manipulate a little bit in how you’re going to block somebody by running RPOs. Sometimes they’re there. Lots of times you’ll run an RPO and the wide receiver runs by the defensive back who comes up and makes the tackle. There’s some negative to that too but when you look at the way some teams play, you have to take what they give you. We had opportunities Saturday to do that and we didn’t take advantage all the time doing it. With our football team, we have to take advantage of everything that’s there and I didn’t feel like Saturday was our best job of doing that.”

On if one-for-ones were the biggest struggle in defending Missouri’s run game:
“Yeah, I think if you look at the entire part of the game, when they got fitted up on us, we didn’t get off of them. If you’re going to be good defensively, that’s kind of what you’re looking for. You want to be able to defeat one-on-one blocks. If you’re playing in a gap, you’ve got to be able to post your guy and play your gap. We didn’t do that all the time Saturday. There’s lots of times where we had one more there than they could block, and they gained four or five yards, plays that really should be either zero or negative plays. That’s what I’m talking about hidden yardage. We lose yardage as the game goes. Several times we had opportunities to have negative plays and they gained seven, eight or nine yards. Over the courses of the game, that adds up a lot. The games that we have not played well in, that’s what’s happened. When you do that, you start trying to find ways to create negative plays and get extra guys and all that, which puts pressure on your back end. So, to do that you have to be able to cover them and we didn’t do a good job of doing that.”

On injury protocol:
“Right, well I’m not a doctor. I’ve got lots of confidence in our medical staff. They’ve done a really good job since I’ve been here so you’re probably talking to the wrong person there. They handle everything from the medical side.”

On when he saw RPOs start happening in the college game and how defenses adjust to it:
“There’s probably pre-snap. The RPOs are probably 10 or 12 years ago. When I was a high school coach, the team that I coached on was doing them then, Hoover High School. We’ve been around that part of it for a very long time and have historically played teams that play that way. We’ve played them pretty well. I think over the last couple of years, you’ve had some guys across the country that have done some really good things as far as manipulating, reading backers and throwing the ball down the field. In the old days you had balls behind the line of scrimmage, then you had quick gain, you had drop back or you had play action pass. I think the RPO game has kind of taken away a lot of the quick gain. You don’t see that as much anymore. People are using the quick gain throws and it really helps in protection because from a defensive line standpoint, they’re playing the blockers. When the guys come off those run plays, they’re not thinking about getting their hands up. On a lot of quick gain throws, the balls are right there above the defensive linemen’s heads. I think it’s just a good way to kind of manipulate the pass rush and if you’re not sound in your run fits, you can manipulate that too.”

On what Marquez Callaway’s injury was and if he’ll practice today:
“I think he’s going to be in a black jersey, no contact for a couple of days. He had a bruise to his chest area. He’s a tough guy. I’m sure he’ll be out there ready to go.”

On what he’s thankful for this year with Thanksgiving being on Thursday:
“I’m thankful for my family. I’m thankful for the opportunity that I have here at the University of Tennessee, the staff that’s here that works with us, our players, our administration, our fanbase. I told the kids Saturday during the Vol Walk, I wanted them to look around and see so they had an understanding of what the passion is for the program that we all represent and the obligation that we have to the people that came before us and the people that are going to come after us.”

On the message to the team about keeping the season alive:
“I talked about it to our staff this morning. This is probably the first time in a long time for me that early on in the season we weren’t participating or playing for playoff implications or a championship in the league. I said before, this game means a whole lot to a whole lot of people and probably since the Florida loss or the Georgia loss, we’ve been playing for pride. To me, you can talk about winning a championship or whatever, but pride is about as important as it gets.”

On how a bowl game in his first year as head coach would help recruiting:
“I think it’s important for our players. It’s going to be important for our senior class to end with a win against Vanderbilt. I think it’s important for everyone associated with our program to raise our level of play. We’ve had opportunities to do that a couple of times this year and in my opinion have not necessarily played at our best. That’s on us as coaches to get everybody in our program to be at their best. It’s a great opportunity for us. It’s a chance to possibly have a winning record and anytime you have positive things going on, I think it’s going to help you in recruiting.”

-UT Athletics