KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee football head coach Jeremy Pruitt said his squad has a lot to prove heading into Saturday’s homecoming contest with UAB inside Neyland Stadium at 7 p.m.
The Vols (3-5) welcome the Blazers (6-1) following their most complete performance of the season as they routed South Carolina 41-21 behind a season-high 351 passing yards from a pair of quarterbacks, two special teams touchdowns and a second-half shutout.
Still, Pruitt said Tennessee isn’t complacent after the big victory and the Vols still have a lot they can improve on.
“We all have something to prove,” Pruitt said. “We aren’t happy with where we are at right now. Everyone in our program has something to prove.
“We need to do a better job as coaches to get our guys to play their best because that is what we are looking for. We will have an opportunity to do that Saturday night. We have worked hard this week to improve. There are so many places where we have to get better at. We have guys in our program that need to step up, some that need to play harder for longer and some that need to execute at a higher level. Starting with myself and our coaches, we all need to improve and be at our best on Saturday.”
Pruitt said a main key moving forward will be forcing turnovers and taking care of the football. The Vols did not turn the ball over against South Carolina last weekend, but on the season, Tennessee is -1 in turnover differential.
“Each week, when we look at turnovers, we look at the NFL (and) we look at the SEC, probably 80 to 85 percent of the folks that win the game, they won the turnover margin,” Pruitt said. “It’s something that plagued us early in the year, (we) had lots of turnovers. We’ve been harping on it, so we’ve got to continue to take care of the football. I think that’s one thing that helped us in this last game.”
Quarterback Shuffle
Pruitt said that he expects all three quarterbacks will be ready for Saturday. Freshman Brian Maurer was back at practice this week after missing the last game due to injury and he split most of the reps with redshirt freshman J.T. Shrout on Wednesday.
“They’re all ready to go,” Pruitt said. “How we play them, we have not decided yet. We’ve still got a couple more practices here to see and make a decision as we get closer to the game.”
Shrout saw the first meaningful action of his career against the Gamecocks, finishing 7-of-11 for 122 yards and a 55-yard touchdown to Marquez Callaway.
Redshirt junior Jarrett Guarantano came off the bench to toss for 229 yards and two scores on 11-of-19 attempts on Saturday, but he broke a bone in his non-throwing hand while tossing a 19-yard touchdown to Jauan Jennings. He had surgery on Sunday and was back at practice on Monday. Pruitt said Guarantano, who has started 22 games in his career, was limited at practice this week, but he expects he will be ready for the Blazers.
It was Jennings who actually started the South Carolina game at quarterback in the “Wildcat” formation and rushed for 11 yards. He tossed a long completion to Callaway later in the first series, but it was nullified by a penalty.
Pruitt said Jennings, a high school quarterback, could actually run Tennessee’s offense in addition to the Vols’ three scholarship quarterbacks.
Offense Clicking
Despite Maurer, who started the previous three games, missing the game, the Vols totaled their season-high in total offense (485 yards) with Shrout and Guarantano splitting time under center and Jennings taking several snaps. While Jennings was the star with 192 total yards, the entire offense was clicking with redshirt senior center Brandon Kennedy and junior left guard Trey Smith leading the offensive line, Callaway contributing 102 receiving yards and Ty Chandler gaining 78 yards on the ground for coordinator Jim Chaney’s offense.
“I feel like Jim’s done a good job all year,” Pruitt said. “Saturday, we maybe executed it at a higher level. We made some throws down the field. When you get plays in chunks, it makes it a little easier to score…I think it helped us Saturday that we created some explosive plays. I think Jim’s done a nice job all year. We’ve got to execute at a little higher level and be a little more consistent everywhere. Our kids are working hard to do that.”
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Jeremy Pruitt Press Conference Full Transcript (Oct. 30)
Opening statement
“Our guys continue to work hard and prepare the right way. Had some guys banged up this week, but our medical staff has done a nice job getting them back (and) getting them out on the practice field. When you look at where we’re at right now as a football team, I see a lot of buy in with our players. I see guys that have continued to work hard preparing at practice. We keep talking about (how) we’ve got to play our best game. We’re a long way from doing that.
“Offensively, we’ve had struggled all year long in the red area. We’ve got to find ways to score touchdowns. Got to establish the run game, be more efficient running the football and we’ve got to do a better job on third down.
Defensively, last week we didn’t get any turnovers, so we’ve got to find a way to get some turnovers. We’ve got to tackle better, we’ve got to eliminate mental mistakes, got to make the other team beat us, got to be able to start fast in the specials team, got to do a much better job in protection on punt and punt coverage. (We) still have not got anything going in the kickoff return game, some of that has been due to the kickers that we’ve played against kicking the ball in the end zone, but we’ve got to do a better job blocking guys running down the field. Up front, I like the energy of our team, they’ve continued to work hard at practice.”
On the quarterback situation:
“Everybody practiced today, so we juggled some guys around obviously. J.T. (Shrout) took the majority of the snaps there. Brian (Maurer) took some too, (We) probably split those guys about 50-40 and Jarrett (Guarantano) took about 10 percent. Some of that has to do with Jarrett’s hand, some of it has to do with (the fact that) he probably doesn’t need as many reps as the other guys right now, but we repped all three guys.”
On why he thinks the results and execution has been better the last three weeks:
“Well, as far as run efficiency, we didn’t run the football near as good this past week as we have in some other weeks. One of the things that we didn’t do is we didn’t turn the football over offensively, which was a huge plus. I don’t know what the statistics are this year, but going into last year, if you just didn’t turn the football over offensively or on special teams, you had like a 78 percent chance of winning the game. That was all of last year. I’m sure it’s very similar (this year). Each week, when we look at turnovers, we look at the NFL (and) we look at the SEC. Probably 80 to 85 percent of the folks that win the game, they won the turnover margin. It’s something that plagued us early in the year, (we) had lots of turnovers. We’ve been harping on it, so we’ve got to continue to take care of the football. I think that’s one thing that helped us in this last game.”
On the health status of Darrell Taylor, Darnell Wright and Jahmir Johnson:
“Darrell practiced today. He’ll be ready to play. Darnell probably has a little ways to go, so he’s working hard to get there (but) it’ll probably be a game-time decision. Jahmir is the same way.”
On if Brian Maurer is cleared to play on Saturday and if Jarrett Guarantano will be used in emergency situations only:
“They’re all cleared to play. Today is the first day that Jarrett has taken some snaps, but they’re all ready to go. How we play them, we have not decided yet. We’ve still got a couple more practices here to see and make a decision as we get closer to the game.”
On how much Brandon Kennedy has been able to help whoever is playing right guard:
“Brandon does a really nice job with the front. He helps the quarterbacks in protections with the run game. He’s very smart, so it’s kind of like having a coach out on the field. We’re glad he’s there. He’s staying healthy and really helping the guys around him.”
On his high school days as a quarterback and playing against Bill Clark’s team:
“That year I actually wasn’t the quarterback, but we beat them twice, I don’t know if he told you that. He was probably talking about our 10th grade year. I wasn’t the quarterback that year. We won 34-6. It was 1990 and I still remember the score, third round of the playoffs at Piedmont.”
On what he sees on film from the UAB wide receivers:
“Well they’re big, they’re fast, they run really good routes, great hands. They create a lot of one on ones for them because they run the football so effectively. The quarterback does a great job of getting them the ball. They got more than two receivers, No. 5, No. 6, No.8, along with their tight ends. They play like three running backs. They have a good football team. These guys are big, fast and strong. They’ve done a nice job recruiting these guys. They are explosive, you watch the tape and they are making people look like they are standing still because they are running so fast. They’ve created a lot of explosive plays, and these same guys turn around there and are the returners on special teams. So, they have dynamic playmakers and we have to do a great job of containing them.”
On how his team maintains focus this week no matter who the opponent is:
“To me, it’s really about us, so we need to keep looking to try to play our best game, and we have been nowhere close to that. If you are a right guard, and the best that you have played as far as grading is 78 percent in a game, you need to play better. If you are a left corner, and the best you have played is 82 percent, and you’ve got two missed tackles and three mental errors, then you need to eliminate the missed tackles, you need to eliminate the mental errors. That’s how we gauge how we play. We’ve got a long way to go as individual players, as a defensive unit, as an offensive unit, special teams. That’s what we are looking for, and that comes with preparation, it comes with creating the right habits, playing with the right mental intensity, playing together. So that’s what we are focused on, and that’s every week. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is. Some of the weeks, we have been closer to that then we have others.”
On having three quarterbacks that have proved themselves:
“Jarrett has played a lot of football. There have been times where he has played at a very high level. Most of the time he has played at a high level. The thing about that position is that the guys that we have recruited for that position and the guys that we have here all have really good ability. When they do something good, everyone knows it. When they do something that is not good, everyone knows it. It’s a whole lot different playing quarterback than it is playing a three technique. In the three technique, no one knows when you do anything wrong. They just know when you make a tackle or if you get a sack. They don’t know the bad because no one watches the person playing the three technique. Everyone watches the quarterback. Those guys have ability. They are like everyone else on our team and they are looking to be at their best on Saturday night. They have to prepare that way through this week. That is what we are focusing on. We are trying to have better Mondays, better Tuesdays and better Wednesdays, and if we do that, hopefully we will have better Saturdays. That has been the focus for everyone on our team this week.”
On Jarrett Guarantano’s toughness:
“Jarrett has something to prove. He knows that. We all have something to prove. We aren’t happy with where we are at right now. Everyone in our program has something to prove and he knows that. He is out there. Is he a tough guy? Yeah, I think that he is a tough guy. Does he want to play? Sure he does. I believe that he will be ready to play, and he will do what it takes to get ready with limited practice. No, it’s not surprising to me.”
On his team’s performance from the first three games to the last three:“Sometimes the scoreboard doesn’t indicate how you play. That has happened this year. There has been times where maybe we played a little better than the scoreboard indicated. When you turn the football over, it doesn’t help you there. Saturday, we created some plays on special teams that flipped it the other way, so maybe we didn’t play as good as everyone thinks we did Saturday. I know how we played. I know that a lot of people in our program are not happy with how they played. We need to do a better job as coaches to get our guys to play their best because that is what we are looking for. We will have an opportunity to do that Saturday night. We have worked hard this week to improve. There are so many places where we have to get better at. We are not playing winning football and we have got to be able to do that. We got guys in our program that need to step up, some that need to play harder for longer and some that need to execute at a higher level. Starting with myself and our coaches, we all need to improve and be at our best on Saturday.”
On UAB not having a program two years ago and their comeback:
“Yeah it is pretty unique. You know the fact of where they were at, football gets shut down. I was actually at Georgia and we got one of the linebackers. The kids had nowhere to go. Jake Ganus, he comes to Georgia, starts for us at linebacker. I also hired a coach from there who has now went back there, Blake Shrader. He was sitting there without a job. He was the DB coach and we get him at Georgia as a GA (graduate assistant). Now he’s back coaching the defensive backs there. It was a unique circumstance. I don’t know exactly the details of how they were able to bring guys back, how many guys they were able to sign. I know there were one year or two years that they didn’t play, all they did was practice and they redshirted a lot of guys. They have an old football team. I know they lost 35 seniors last year, so they had 35 seniors on their team last year. Anytime you have 35 seniors on your team, you have a pretty good chance to be a good football team. I’m sitting there looking this year, especially offensively, they really only have two returning starters. But I’m looking at everybody on their team, they are redshirt juniors or redshirt seniors in the two-deep. So, they have some age on their team. They are very well coached. The guys who coach there, I am very familiar with them. It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen them do it for the last 25 years. Some of them as players, some of them as coaches. I’m not surprised there.”
On Jim Chaney’s play calling:
“I feel like Jim’s done a good job all year. Saturday, we maybe executed it at a higher level. We made some throws down the field. When you get plays in chunks, it makes it a little easier to score. When you sit there and you have to grind it out; four yards, three yards, seven yards, convert, four third downs in a drive lots can happen. The more plays it takes you to score, the more self-inflicting wounds you can get. I think it helped us Saturday that we created some explosive plays. I think Jim’s done a nice job all year. We’ve got to execute at a little higher level and be a little more consistent everywhere. Our kids are working hard to do that. There have been lots of games offensively where I have felt like we moved the ball then we turn it over and don’t give ourselves a chance. Or we move the ball and we get a penalty, a dead ball penalty and now its 1st -and-25. It’s hard to overcome. That’s happened in some of the games where maybe at the end of the game what was on the scoreboard was not exactly probably a good indication of how we played.”
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