University of Tennessee Athletics
Vol Report: Jones Looking for Discipline, Fast Start in Road Test
September 13, 2017 | Football
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The 23rd-ranked Tennessee football team continued its preparations for Saturday's game at No. 24/25 Florida on Wednesday at Haslam Field. Head Coach Butch Jones met with members of the media for the final time before the Vols meet the Gators at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.
Tennessee and Florida will meet for the 47th time in the series and for the 24th time both teams will be ranked.
The storied rivalry has featured some thrilling games in recent memory with Tennessee erasing a 21-0 deficit to win 38-28 in Knoxville in 2016 and Florida squeaking out one-point victories in 2015 (28-27) and 2014 (10-9).
Only 27 players on Team 121 made the last trip to "The Swamp" in 2015, and Jones expects to lean on the leadership of those upperclassmen in the last few days leading up to the Vols' first road test of 2017.
"I think you have to be able to start fast, particularly when you go on the road," Jones said. "It's going to be a great college football environment. Of our 70 individuals boarding the plane going to Gainesville, only 27 have ever even been in the swamp. That's going to be a great challenge in and of itself. You have to rely on your older players, but it comes down to the discipline to execute for 60 minutes. If it takes more than 60 minutes, it takes more than 60 minutes. I think it takes a mature football team, particularly when you go on the road in this great rivalry."
Jones added four new coaches to his staff (associate head coach/defensive line Brady Hoke, special teams coordinator/defensive backs Charlton Warren, quarterbacks coach Mike Canales and wide receivers coach Kevin Beard) this offseason and promoted tight ends coach Larry Scott to offensive coordinator and quality control analyst Walt Wells to offensive line coach. The staff has jelled well, and Jones has confidence in his assistants heading to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium after bonding in the spring and overcoming a 14-point deficit in the season-opening 42-41 double overtime victory over Georgia Tech in a neutral site game held in the Yellow Jackets hometown of Atlanta.
"When you assemble a staff, you want teachers, you want high-character people," Jones said. "I look at it with having three boys of my own, and one that is now really a part of the coaching staff, would I want my son to be coached by them? I ask that question all the time, and the answer is I would want all our coaches to coach my son.
"I think it was really defined if you look at the end of the game against Georgia Tech. We had four minutes and 50 seconds, we had to drive the length of the field with a new play caller, a new quarterback, and a lot of new wide receivers, and we were able to score a touchdown. Obviously, then (we won) in double overtime. You find out a lot about your staff right from the get-go."
The Vols will head to Gainesville on Friday afternoon.
