University of Tennessee Athletics
Butch Jones Transcript (10/28/14)
October 28, 2014 | Football
Head Coach Butch Jones
(On the offense responding to their performance against Alabama)
"We have also had confidence in practice, again it is just the overall discipline to execute your assignment but I thought our players came out today and had very good energy. Again, it is just the overall execution day in and day out, that consistency which we speak about but I do see some confidence but I have also seen it week in and week out as well."
(On the report naming him a future candidate at Michigan)
"It is not worth even discussing, there is no validity to it. I am not even going to waste your time or my time even commenting on that. I think you all know how I feel."
(On the offensive line having success against Alabama
"You do need success and we always talk about playing with confidence but quite simply, how do you gain confidence? By having success. So they did experience some success, they have worked exceptionally hard and we are going to be challenged again at South Carolina. Very big, physical defensive front, very active linebacking corps, can match up, play man-to-man in the back end. So we are going to be challenged again. But yes, a byproduct of having confidence is also having success."
(On Justin Worley's health)
"He is still a work in progress. He threw the ball a little bit today but not the velocity he is going to need yet. But he took all the mental reps, didn't miss any reps in terms of overall but it is just the velocity right now. We still have until the end of the week but if we were to play the game right now he wouldn't be able to play."
(On Joshua Dobbs)
"Business as usual. That is Josh. Very humble, very workmanlike approach, so about the same."
(On wanting Joshua Dobbs to have some swagger about him)
"I want him to be Josh Dobbs. I don't want him to be anybody that he is not. He does have some swagger, he does have his own confidence in the way he presents himself. So for me to stand here and tell you he doesn't, I mean, he is Josh Dobbs, our players respect him for that because he has confidence and he displays it. He just displays it in other ways as well."
(On Joshua Dobbs showing consistency at practice)
"I asked every player what their goal was for practice today and his was to be able to execute the routine plays. So he is cognizant of that. He is working on it. That will be proven over a course of time. Again, consistency isn't just one practice, it is putting a number of them together. But he knows it and he is working hard on it and he is a very determined young man and I know he will work exceptionally hard at that and improve on that."
(On Joshua Dobbs' confidence)
"He did. It is probably a byproduct of playing, developing some confidence. So I do, I think that is all part of it."
(On the offensive lines confidence)
"I do. Again, you have to have success to have some confidence. They have meticulously been improving. Some days better than others. Are they where we expect them to be? Absolutely not. I think they would be the first to tell you. But they are grinding through it. We are seeing improvement. Like I said at the press conference. We are a work in progress. But I do see a little bit different temperament, I do see some confidence."
(On the rotation on the offensive line)
"Anything and everything. Just trying to find the top five. Coleman Thomas practiced a little bit but now he has the flu bug that hit our freshman class last week. It didn't have anything to do with the other injury. So he was able to practice a little bit. Marcus Jackson went through the entire practice which was great to see. Jacob Gilliam continues to get better. So again, it is just trying to put, we can go about seven deep now. So again, we ask a lot of individuals to play different positions. So we are rotating them in, making sure that they know the game plan. Whether it is playing guard then bumping out to tackle."
(On what he is looking for in Matt Darr )
"Consistency and net punting is everything when we punt the football. That can be skewed a little bit, are you pouch kicking it? But just a high level of consistency. Hang time, his kick placement is critical to our kick coverage and then op time. Our goal is about a 1.98, a 1.97 in overall operation time. You look at, you have about 6.5 seconds, 6.7 seconds sometimes 6.3 seconds to be able to, you have to cover, run down, force a fair catch or cover a kick. And we talk about op time all the time. But just ball placement, kick location which I am speaking about and then just overall hang time is very, very critical."
(On how Matt Darr has rebounded from a slow start) "Yeah, he has. He has worked exceptionally hard at it. He does take great pride in his performance. But it's just that consistency, that consistent work we talk about. But he has been kicking very well for us. Again, it gets back to now having some success. He now has great confidence as well."
(On Josh Malone's improvements)
"He has continuously gotten better week in and week out. That's a byproduct of his work ethic, hang on everything Coach Z tells him. He's a very prideful young man. He takes pride in his performance. Very, very smart. He writes down all the things he needs to work on. The biggest change in him is probably his practice habits, understanding what it takes to have great practices, and now you're seeing it come out on game day as well. I know he was excited to get his first touchdown, and we expect many more of those to come in his career."
(On if he thinks as a freshman Josh Malone is further along than Marquez North was last year)
"It's really unfair to compare. Both of those two individuals bring a different dynamic. They're both different, but they're also very similar. In terms of their competitive character, their makeup, their workmanlike approach, their love for the game. So they have those similarities but they also have some differences."
(On the receivers being more physical)
"I thought they played an unselfish game. I think the individual who was really a great illustration of that was Jason Croom. I know he didn't have any catches. He didn't have any statistics, but he had a lot of statistics when it comes to helping us perform. He blocked exceptionally well. He opened up some routes for others to have catches. I thought he played one of his better games. You don't see it on the stat sheet, but I was very, very proud of him. We're going to need that effort moving forward. But again, just being able to make plays. When the ball is in the air, go make a play, catch in advance. We're going to need that moving forward."
(On if a bye week will help bring Justin Worley back)
"It could. We'll reassess everything and see where he's at, you know, what's the status of his shoulder. So, we'll put a lot of that in the bye week. But with him, it's day by day. You can kind of see now day by day how does that equal out to over time and how it progresses."
(On how the decision will be made if Worley will play)
"It's how his body handles the rehabilitation and does his body continue to improve, which it has shown a little bit slowly or does it not. Then you're talking about surgery and other things like that. We're trying to get him ready for this game. There is a chance that he could be but you never know. It's still early on in the week, so we'll see. But if he's ready to play, he's going to play. We'll see how that goes."
(On what Corey Vereen has brought to the team)
"He takes great pride in his performance. He's as hard a worker as we have in our football program. Great illustration to our younger players about the rest and recovery that's needed from the stretching to the hydration to doing the extra things. They used to make fun of him last year. He was kind of a different breed in terms of that. Now it has become the norm in our football program. You know what you're getting with Corey Vereen. Very intelligent. We're really challenging him on his overall pad level and staying low coming off of the football. He takes coaching. He hangs on every word that you tell him."
(On how Corey Vereen's intelligence is important to his game)
"It's very important. Having you're `a' move, your counter off your `a' move, understanding blitzes and tackles, you know understanding all those things that you look for from video study or trying to gain a competitive advantage. But also to self-scout yourself from your stance, star, get off, hand placement. The difference is six inch hand punch in defending the run from here to here is critical in winning or losing your one-on-one matchup for that play. He takes that to heart. He dissects every play. He internalizes every play that he is in."
