2-minute drill: Tennessee returns to the practice field

Tennessee was back to work on the practice field on Sunday following a Saturday off-day.

The Vols scrimmaged Friday night for the first time in fall camp and head coach Josh Heupel seemed pretty pleased overall.

Tennessee’s defense set the tone early in the Friday night work, with the deep, talented and much ballyhooed defensive front winning the trenches according to scrimmage observers.

For defensive line coach Rodney Garner it was back to work for his group on Sunday to continue to grow, but as he noted last week, the outside noise means nothing.

“I’m not (praising them). So we just try to block out all the outside noise,” Garner said. “One thing about it, when you look at that film, when you study it and you come in there every day and you really look at it and you got to be your own biggest critic. And it’s no different from me as a coach. Every day I’m going out there in the field, I’m working to be a better coach today than I was yesterday. Same thing that they’re working for as players. And we all have a lot of room that we need to improve in and in a lot of areas. If they’re going bring this kind of stuff on you, then you got to prepare for it. And that’s the thing I told them, man, this is not going to be easy now. To whom much is given, much as required. So we’ve got to prepare ourselves to go out there and be able to play at a championship level. And that is the challenge every single day.”

Garner said the mindset is simple, it’s about making Saturday’s easier.

Everybody, they always want to say, well, you coach hard, you’re hard on this and that. Well this is a hard game. Life is hard. So what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to prepare them for those difficult times. And even though I know they said, well, you’re a dinosaur, you played in the dinosaur age, you know, when I played, Coach Dye’s philosophy, he wanted practice to be his hardest thing he did. He wanted the game to be easy. And (it’s) that same kind of philosophy that I want to relate to these guys. I want them to really work their butt off, prepare to be champions, and then on Saturday be able to go out there and just reap the rewards of your labor. So that’s, what we’re trying to stress to them. That’s what we’re working towards and, like I said, we still got so much room to improve.”

Bent Hubbs and Austin Price have the latest from Sunday’s work with the Exterior Home Solutions 2-Minute Drill.

Stay up to date on everything Tennessee during the course of fall camp at Volquest.com.

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