University of Tennessee Athletics
Weekly Football Press Conference Coaches' Quotes
November 20, 2001 | Football
Nov. 20, 2001
Comments from University of Tennessee head coach Phillip Fulmer at Nov. 20press conference prior to Saturday's (Nov. 24) game against Vanderbilt (3:30 p.m./CBS)
"From our standpoint, this is a very big week. We have a very important football game with Vanderbilt. It's an opportunity we take to honor our seniors and that's always special and emotional.
"We have some great opportunities as a team. With a win, we can continue to move forward toward our goals we set at the beginning of the year. I'm pleased with the win we came away with last week. Our teams showed a lot of character and a lot of guts and got the win, although it wasn't everything we wanted as a game.
"This senior class has been really special. We're off to a good start preparing for Vanderbilt. We understand the urgency of preparing and improving. Four of the last six years, the games have been really close. Vanderbilt has played well and hard against us.
"All the different things they do on offense, particularly, are things you have to prepare and play well against. To improve from our last game, one issue is our tackling and some of our patience in our zone coverage and those things I think we will be better at. We'll have to be better.
"Offensively, they give you a lot of fronts. There's no question they've done a good job against us in the past and we have to continue to take care of the ball, manage the fronts and hit our plays when we get an opportunity to do so, depending on how much man-to-man they like to play.
"The kicking game will be a huge part of what we do. It's been much better the last couple of games. We're excited to get to play again. I hope we play better than we did last week. We'll need to."
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