Yesterday I struggled with finding positives in the Arkansas game. I still don’t think there are a lot of positives from that particular game. But, I am an orange homer, and all I needed to get my mind right, was a good dose of Dooleyisms. This week did not disappoint.
On Tyler Bray:
I guess the question this week is going to be Tyler (Bray) and he has been cleared to go ahead and start practicing, which is right on schedule with what we expected. I would probably list him if I had to say a word as questionable. I really won’t know until we start practicing to see how he can take a snap, how accurately he can throw it. He’s going to have a little learning curve coming back because he has been out of ball. What has it been, five, six weeks? Which is a little bit of time. We will see. We still have to get the other guys ready to play and we will just kind of take it day by day… I’ll watch him. We’ll put him in some plays. It’s just a little premature for me to say he’s going to take all the one reps. We are just going to see what he can do in individual, see how we go, throw some seven-on-seven and then take it from there.
Bray not be very good this week, I have to keep reminding myself this. But it still feels like an early Thanksgiving present.
Here's hoping that this is a pain free, explosive experience for Tennessee this week.
On not watching the Arkansas film:
It didn’t look like us in so many respects and we’ve been coaching much of the same stuff for 10 weeks now. I just felt like it was better that we closed the door on that game, regrouped and got our thoughts right going into this week. They watched it on their own if they wanted to; I’m sure they did. They all had their grade sheets. There was no sense in going and beating on them another two hours because they got beat on pretty good.
Well said. So much of coaching is knowing when to harp on things, and when to just let it go, and move on.
On the Orange Dog:
Who said that? Did they say that publically or off the record to you? The whole deal is you have a choice when you wake up on what you are going to feed your mind. You really have a choice; we all do. We get so emotionally invested in results in our country that it can really just sabotage your thinking, sabotage your performance, and it has our team. I don’t think there is any question. Those teams that say, `Well, we didn’t get the breaks. We just didn’t have the breaks and, oh, we were close.’ You are missing that juice, missing that confidence and every day you wake up, you’ve got one side that wants to be negative and wants to feel sorry for yourself and make excuses and blame others. Then you’ve got another side that thinks good thoughts and has a lot of encouragement. It’s a little more solution oriented and isn’t so emotionally drawn to the results. That’s the side we need to feed ourselves. It’s hard to do. It’s hard for all of us. It starts with the coaching staff, and then everybody in the organization – I’ve told the trainers and the equipment guys. The last thing we can do is just stick our head down and get all down because it will only get worse when you do that.
I doubt this is the Big Orange Dog Dooley was referring to, but I hated all the other options in Google images.
I have no idea what the Orange Dog is, and apparently it’s a team secret, and I am ok with that. However, the rest of this paragraph is an apt description of our society. So often we want to know “How does it end?” We don’t enjoy the process. Statistically this team is better than last year’s team. With arguably less talent. More on this later..
On Justin Worley’s red-shirt:
Do I think it was the right thing to do? I do. I don’t know what would have happened in those other games had we not. I’m not going to sit here and say absolutely. I mean, none of us know what would have happened. I did what I thought was right. I do know this, no matter what happens this year; I do believe the experience he gained so far and the experience he might gain will make him a better quarterback next year. It will help him understand the amount of focus and consistency that it takes to play well. That will help him in the offseason and it will help him next year. I think that goes for all of our young guys. I’ve felt like you go out there and go, `Man, you shouldn’t have played the guy because he rat-trapped all the time.’ We had a lot of them do that the other night. But what happens is because they are getting the experience, they make better sophomores. I do think it will help him next year.
Exhibit A: Da’Rick Rogers.
Exhibit B: Tyler Bray
Exhibit C: Justin Hunter
On Vanderbilt:
They made the quarterback switch and they do everything. You can’t cheat against them, meaning every time they do this, they are going to do that. You got to go play. And what’s interesting is they really find a way to generate big plays, as good as anybody. I think Arkansas is the only team with more big plays than they’ve had. So they get you with a lot of misdirection. They do quarterback runs, the quarterback throws it, the quarterback scrambles and he’s really fast. He’s changed what they’ve looked like on offense, and it’s showed by their points. Big plays and points, that’s the name of the game today. Defensively, a real veteran group – real veteran group. Tough, extremely disciplined, never out of position, great tackling football team. They just play really sound football. Because of their experience, they know when to take chances and they can read intentions. They are a lot more aware than young players on what the other side is doing. Because of that they have created a lot of turnovers, and they’ve kept them in the games. I mean, they have kept them fighting in the games. Nobody can ever pull away from them. You’ve had some teams that jump on them. Florida jumps on them 17-0 and they go out there and play great defense and they kind of inch their way back in it. That is always your starting point in this league.
On Austin Johnson:
Austin Johnson has made great strides for Tennessee over his four years.
Our Mike linebacker. He’s made three really great plays. That was an incredible play he made the other night, and we’re lucky he made it. If he didn’t, we busted the coverage and the safety who needed to be covering the guy was all the way over there on the sideline. But Austin wheeled back, he made a great play… I think back to what Austin looked like four years ago. He was probably banging around as a backup fullback, I’m sure people thought, `What is he?’ And even last year, he didn’t do much for us. He had no real role. But it’s a guy who stays invested in the program, he keeps working, he’s got a tremendous level of commitment to being as good as he can be, and then, eventually, he blossoms. He’s a great example of that.
This is why it’s so important to remember the process. How many freshman make all-conference teams? How many juniors and seniors do? We are still SO young. We may not make a bowl this year, but it’s not going to be the end of the world. How many people looked at Austin Johnson after the 2008 season and said “yeah that guy’s going to contribute”. I didn’t. Now let’s think about last year’s freshmen: What about Bray, Hunter, Rogers, Juwuan James, Zach Fulton, Channing Fugate, Jacques Smith, Corey Miller….how many of them will be better than Austin Johnson is now? What about this year’s freshmen? Marcus Jackson, D’Anthony Arnett, Brian Randolph, AJ Johnson, Curt Maggitt, Justin Coleman, and Justin Worley, how many of them will be better than Austin Johnson? I think the future is rosy, it’ll just require patience that we, as Americans, and Tennessee fans don’t possess.
On Marlin Lane and the Wildcat:
He’s pretty good. We called two passes the other night and his decision-making actually was better than some of our other guys. Both time, the guy was covered and he didn’t throw a pick. A lot of times you run those trick plays and they’re serving it up no matter what. But we had a throw-back called and we threw a little halfback pass out of the wildcat.
At least they tried it, and it’s working.
Marlin Lane has shown good things in the Wildcat package
On Senior Day
Last year, I didn’t have much time with those guys. I didn’t know them very well, it was a little edgy when I got here, it was edgy early in the year with them. But despite all that, I got chocked up a little bit that last game just watching them. Seeing how emotional they got, it hit me how much they loved their experience here – as bad as it was as far as the record and what happened and all that. That’s when it really hits you how much college means to somebody and playing college football. I wasn’t prepared for it, but I did (get emotional). I’ll be better prepared this time…We were a mess the first quarter of the Kentucky game last year. All our seniors, there was so much emotion that they couldn’t perform.
I think we all have a college moment like senior day.
On players of the week:
We didn’t have any. We closed the book on it. No coaches of the week, no player of the week, no managers of the week. The whole organization got no positive feedback from that game.
So it wasn’t just me!
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