Tennessee Now Talking About Being "Game Ready"

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee football coach Butch Jones, along with staff coordinators, assistant coaches and players, spoke to reporters during Tuesday's media session.

Butch Jones

“We are looking forward to playing. As you know, we are nine days away. It is getting closer, but again, these next couple of days are very critical for us. Right now, we are talking to our players about being game-ready. Are you game-ready? Can you go out there and play 80 or 90 snaps at a very high level? As a coaching staff, we met today and reviewed everyone in our football program. Are they game-ready? If they are not, then what do they need to do to get themselves to be game-ready? Then we will have game-ready meetings where they will have some goals that they need to get accomplished during the next few days with practice and recovery to get themselves game-ready. We will take a couple of days and do that. 

“We have our mock game (Tuesday night), which is very important to our football team, especially for our younger players with all the moving parts and pieces and components that go into organizing a sideline and seeing all the different scenarios that can happen throughout the course of a season and game. I am looking forward to seeing the mental effort and intensity of what it takes to play winning football in those situations in Neyland Stadium and see how our players respond to that.”

Mike DeBord | Offensive Coordinator

(On whether the team has practiced enough headed into Game One)
"I don't know if you ever know that. That's what you're always talking about as coaches - what do we need the next practice and what do we need two days from now? Butch talks about that all the time with us. Everybody always says, 'How are you?' I don't know if you really know until you get in the game. Once you get into the game, you really see where we are. After Game One, we'll find out where we need to improve to get to Game Two. You see some things you know you have to get better at but until you get underneath those lights, things change."

Bob Shoop | Defensive Coordinator

(On the preseason performance of freshman defensive back Baylen Buchanan)
“He’s a mature kid. Just like anything else (for a freshman), everything is the first time going through it for him. From summer school, then all of a sudden you’re out of summer school, and then it’s training camp, and then all of a sudden school starts and there’s thousands of people on campus. Every step of the way he’s been ‘Steady Eddie.’ That’s what’s been very, very impressive about him and that’s why so many people compare him to [Cameron Sutton]. He’s got that unique maturity level for a freshman that’s put him in a position where he can contribute this year."

Willie Martinez | Defensive Backs Coach

(On how he feels about the defense's depth entering this season)
"It's a lot easier when you have players. The competition is good and competing every day has given us the opportunity to have some flexibility and move guys around. We feel very comfortable with the fact that there are guys - without naming names - who play multiple positions. That helps us if somebody does get hurt or goes down where a lot of guys in the secondary play special teams and you're able to give some rest where you need it. It helps us stay fresh in the fourth quarter. That's going to be a major plus for us this year."

Zach Azzanni | Wide Receivers  

(On whether having a veteran wide receiver unit speeds up the offense)
"Absolutely. It makes things faster from every standpoint, not just from tempo but for install and with all of those things we can certainly go faster. It always helps when you have older guys because they can also teach these younger guys and coach these younger guys, rather than us always doing it. So, you can put everything in faster. I told the receivers from the very first meeting this year, 'We will go as far as you guys coach each other.' If [Josh] Malone and [Josh] Smith can coach the younger players, the better we'll be midseason and through the end of the season."

Joshua Dobbs | Quarterback  

(On opening the 2016 football season on a Thursday) 
"It will just be different with it being Thursday, but not much will change. We'll still have our normal week plan. For us, game week starts this Thursday and we will prepare for the game and go through our weekly regimen from our football practice schedule to film study. I haven't played a Thursday game since high school or middle school so I'm definitely excited about it and I think it'll be a lot of fun to play the first game of the year on SEC Network. It's definitely a great platform for us and we'll have to go out and compete. It's important to go out and play our game of football, that's the big thing. You can't go out and do something that's outside of yourself. You have to be yourself and go out and execute. If you do that you'll be successful."

Todd Kelly Jr. | Defensive Back  

(On the depth in the secondary)
"We have a lot of quality players in the back end. We have guys we can trust, guys we can count on, guys with experience and guys that have gotten a lot of reps whether it's first team reps, second team reps or third team reps. Young guys have been coming in and performing. Everyone trusts each other and understands what we expect out of one another. With that in mind, we know that we have a lot of depth. If one man goes down or one man needs a breather we know that the next guy coming in is not going to slouch off. We're going to have the same expectations."

Kahlil McKenzie | Defensive Lineman

(On where he has improved the most from freshman to sophomore year)
"Coach Jones challenged me last season, towards the end of the season. The mental aspect of the game, he said that was what needed the most improvement. He talked about the body and all of that type of stuff and he talked about that the mental aspect of challenging yourself to not be tired out there and things like that and being able to push through mentally, knowing what you are supposed to do with assignments, alignment and that type of thing. That's where I think I have improved the most - the mental aspect of the game."

(Contact Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and on Twitter @larryfleming44)