University of Tennessee Athletics
Lane Kiffin's Media Day Transcript
September 08, 2009 | Football
Sept. 8, 2009
Opening comments: "This is a big time matchup for us this week. Going back and watching all three phases of the film from the San Diego State game, this is a team that is very much improved from last season, a team that came out and was very physical in the game on defense. I think they gave up maybe 38 yards rushing. This will be a big test for us; we need to get our passing game going. Hopefully, Gerald Jones will come back this week and Denarius Moore, hopefully, will be 100 percent healthy.
"We're going to need Jonathan in our passing game and our tight ends to play extremely well. This is a physical defense. This is a defense that has three first-round draft picks and a middle linebacker who is making a ton of difficult plays and two defensive ends that can really rush us. We are going to have to be able to hit on all cylinders to be able to play in this game.
"On the other side of the ball, I thought their quarterback, (Kevin) Prince, played extremely well, especially for his first game in about two years from his injury in high school. Like is said, this is a much-improved team from last year, especially the quarterback position. (It) looks very different from last year.
"We are going to have our hands full. On special teams, they are very good. On special teams they were very good last year, and they started the season extremely well. They have a very good coordinator, Frank Gansz Jr., coming from the NFL, from the Ravens, who will give us a lot of issues schematically and the returners are very good."
On the difference between SEC and Pac-10 styles of play:
"You hear that a bunch. The first part of that, I think the offense is really good in the Pac-10. I don't really know what this year means but when we were there, there were a number of offenses that were really explosive and dynamic, a lot of great quarterbacks playing and a lot of quarterbacks being drafted year after year.
"The first thing I heard was there was no defense out there, all the defense is down in the south. I think the offenses caused a lot of issues out there, very good offensive head coaches and offensive coordinators. As far as defense, obviously I was on the other side of the argument before. We had a few games versus the SEC, I think we played Arkansas twice and scored 70 and 63, so we weren't really buying in to it. As you get down here and you look at the film during the offseason, there are so many great players especially in the front seven on defense, and the conference is stronger than it was then. In my opinion, the SEC is deeper than it was three or four, five years ago when I was at Southern Cal. The teams that have been known as the `bottom-of-the-conference' teams are having the best couple-year runs that they've had in a long time, some in the history of their school. I think the SEC is the strongest that it has ever been."
On UCLA being a big game for him because he coached at USC:
"That has nothing to do with it. This is about preparing each day and getting our team ready to play against a very good team. Whoever is coaching there or whether myself or anyone on our staff has played in a rivalry has nothing to do with it. We've got to get focused to play a really good team that played great last week. We're going to have our hands full. We've got a lot of work to do."
On if his and Ed Orgeron's familiarity with UCLA offensive coordinator Norm Chow makes preparation easier:
"That part helps us a little bit. It has nothing to do with the rivalry. Being around Coach Chow for four years--I?think Ed was there three years with him--we do have some background with him. From a fan's perspective or a media perspective, I think it's a big-time matchup, a legends matchup if you look at Norm Chow versus Monte Kiffin. That's a big chess match with arguably the best defensive coordinator in NFL?history and the best offensive coordinator in college history. I think it's a very intriguing matchup of two great coaches."
On his expectations for the team's improvement between Game 1 and Game 2:
"The philosophy of playing so many young players and putting them in so many situations where they had to make plays, it was for a reason. Usually, from Week 1 to Week 2 you see a big jump. Hopefully our guys will be much more comfortable coming back into the same stadium having done a Vol Walk, having played in front of 100,00 people. It is very valuable for us as opposed to waiting until someone got injured to put them in. Then you deal with guys making mistakes. I?hope our guys will be improved a lot, and we'll need to be improved a lot in order to play with these guys."
