Midweek Updates

Photo Credit: Andrew Ferguson/Tennessee Athletics

Welcome to Georgia week. Today, we take a look at the leadership on Tennessee's roster, the upcoming road test at Georgia and Jeremy Pruitt's Monday press conference.

Players Show Leadership After Humiliating Loss

After a blowout loss to Florida on Saturday, watching the game again would be the last thing anybody would want to do. Several Tennessee players initiated film sessions on Sunday, which shows great leadership and commitment. Pruitt commented on this, saying, "I'm walking through the offices, and our offices are littered with our players watching tape. I had no idea they were up there. There's a group of guys that had them in there, talking about players and being leaders. I guess they organized it. That's the first time I've seen that, but I saw some ownership during the game the other day that excites me about moving forward." I am thoroughly impressed with players on the team stepping up as leaders. The program is rebuilding, obviously, but the fact that these player-led film sessions occurred after Pruitt's fourth game as the Vols' coach shows that the program is finally headed in the right direction.

Tennessee Faces #2 Georgia on Saturday

Tennessee travels to Athens, Georgia, to take on the Bulldogs. Georgia is ranked second in the nation and is coming off a 43-29 win over Missouri. This will be a great opportunity for Tennessee's offense to show that they can take care of the ball against a very talented defense. It will be a 3:30 kickoff, the SEC on CBS game. Georgia opens as 31.5 point favorites, but the Vols will look to keep it much closer than that. If they can limit their turnovers and gain yards on first and second downs, allowing for manageable third downs, they should cover the spread. Jarrett Guarantano will need to have a great day throwing the ball if the Vols want to keep it interesting.

Pruitt's Monday Press Conference

Jeremy Pruitt opened his press conference on Monday by reflecting on the loss to Florida, saying, "Going back and reviewing the game, it's a lot of what I thought. It's hard to have a lot of success when you have six turnovers. We gave the guys a short field three different times, and obviously, we turned it over on the one-yard line and on the 20 another time. Then we started the second half with a fumble on the opening kickoff. Ball security is something that we work on every single day on both sides of the ball. It has been an emphasis for us. We've got to improve on it. We did a pretty good job on it the first two games, but we have not the last two games. We've got to continue to focus on it. We've got to continue to get more turnovers on defense, and we've got to take care of the ball, offensively." I am confident that Tennessee will not have another 6 turnovers on Saturday, so hopefully they will be able to score touchdowns and not settle for field goals in the red zone.

After an odd story about Quart'e Sapp not entering the game when told to surfaced after the loss to Florida, Pruitt addressed it again on Monday, saying, "It's like I said after the game, Quart'e's been a great ambassador. He came and saw me yesterday, and it's like I told you after the game. After him and I sat down and talked, it would be between us and we would keep it in house. I said it the other night, and I'll say it to our players: since I've been here, he has been a really good ambassador to our football program, to our team, and he's been a good leader on our team. Everybody makes mistakes, so we're going to move on, and we'll go from there."

Pruitt also commented on Baylen Buchanan's play against Florida, stating, "I thought this was one of Baylen's better games. He's one of the guys that I saw that I felt like answered the bell a little bit. I can remember one play in the game that I thought he could've done better on the ball down the sideline. He played a lot of press coverage and guarded guys really well. Baylen has talent, and he's gaining confidence, so that's a good thing." Tennessee, although very young, definitely has some talented defenders. Baylen has emerged as a reliable member of Tennessee's secondary. He should continue to make a positive impact as the season progresses.