University of Tennessee Athletics
Butch Jones Transcript (12/29/14)
December 29, 2014 | Football
Head Coach Butch Jones
(Opening statement)
"It's great to be down here at a first-class bowl like the TaxSlayer Bowl. Everything is new for our players but it's also been an eye-opening experience in a positive way, the team chemistry with the bowl functions and being together as a football team. But, again, the number one deal is coming down here to win the bowl game and it's all about your preparation. To get out here, the biggest things is going to be adapting and adjusting to humidity. It's supposed to be 86 percent humidity, so the hotter the better today. It's going to be a great workday for us.
There was a great message for us earlier today with John Henderson, a Vol For Life, Tennessee great came back and requested to speak with the team and he was outstanding. I know our players appreciated his message."
(On the goal of practice)
"It's fine-tuning the game plan. Most of the work was done back in Knoxville, but coming down here now is dine-tuning, becoming a better football team, it's all execution. We had a theme and if you look at the bowl season so far it's marred with missed tackles, big plays, explosive plays, special teams are at a premium. You almost have to have a first-game approach with anything and everything. You take so much time studying the other team's tendencies that you're going to have plays off of those tendencies. It goes back to the overall discipline that it takes to play winning football, our eye discipline and execution. It's going to be a physical football game and we understand that."
(On what stands out about Iowa)
"First of all, very, very physical. Very well coached. They do what they do and they run execution-based systems and their players perform them. They are a junior and senior-laden team, so they have the experience factor. Their fifth-year seniors are on their fourth bowl experience, and the preparation that goes into a bowl game and being able to X-out all of the clutter and distractions and focus on the task at hand. They do what they do and they execute it well and execute it with a high level of physicality as well."
(On if there will be any contact in practice)
"Today will be a "thud" practice, so yes. We've had some physical practices, but now it's just getting our players to the game and just the overall execution of our schemes. But it will be a physical day today."
(On keeping the players focused)
"We're going to rely on our coaches, we're going to rely on our older players, the overall leadership of our football team. They've done a great job as of right now of really understanding the purpose of why we're down here and that's to enjoy each other, but it's also to win a football game. It's all about your preparation and taking care of your body. You have to get your body prepared to play in this type of humidity, this type of heat right now this time of the year. It's your hydration, it's your rest, your recovery. It's all of those things the great players understand, it's all about your performance and everyone taking great pride in your performance and great pride in your preparation for your performance."
(On John Henderson's message)
"It's very important, it's a pride of who we are. It's another great illustration, a 10-year [NFL] vet, a Pro Bowl player, loves Tennessee. To have him be able to come back and be from here in Jacksonville. The message was from being a freshman and all the things that goes into it to being a Pro Bowl player and all the things that going into it how you take care of your body. You could see the excitement, you could see the energy, you could see the passion. We led off with a YouTube video of him and the trainer that has become very wide-spread and he was laughing about that, but you could see the passion and the energy. Great players have an energy level about themselves, so it was a great illustration for our players of the excellence that we have here at Tennessee."
(On the practice facility at UNF)
"Tremendous. I just took a few minutes to walk the fields and they're in great, great shape. It's a great practice facility, hat's off to the ground crew. It's the TaxSlayer Bowl, it's a first-class January bowl game and they've done a great job. We need this. We need the sun, the wind the humidity, we need all of that."
(On the significant amount of freshman playing this season)
"They have done a great job, a lot of them are mature beyond their years, a lot of them have had to play on necessity. It is where we are at in the building of this football program. We will turn around and we may be the youngest football team again in America next year. It is part of the evolution and the growth of our football program. What seniors we do have, they have done a great job providing the leadership to the younger players but we have a lot of younger players that we have put them in some very demanding and tough situations but they have answered the call really incredibly. They have done a great job, I have been proud of our players. We have asked a lot of them. You look at our schedule, out of a 12 game schedule, we had nine bowl teams and an FCS team that, I believe, went to the quarterfinals and very could have went to the semifinals. It has been challenging and when you come here and you are playing an Iowa football team and it is just another one of the challenges hat we have had all season long."
(On players no longer with the team)
"Yeah, I am talking about the players that are here. It is all about the bowl experience. Jaylen Miller, we will help him find a place where he thinks he can play and same way with D'Andre Payne, we will help them and wherever they feel they can play we will help them. But I am proud of these players. Let's make sure we understand that. Everyone wants to talk about other things, there is a reason why we are here and it is the efforts of these football players and they have done a tremendous job. Again, it is all about the bowl experience and when we set forth in August, our goal was to become a bowl football team and win a bowl game. To be playing in the TaxSlayer Bowl, a January bowl game, obviously is very special. Again, it is going to be another one of those challenges that we have had this whole entire season."
(On Iowa)
"They have great, great leadership. Again, they are a very well-coached football team, they are very, very experienced and they played a very tough and demanding schedule as well. Again, everyone is good when you go to the bowl season. We are going to get their `A' game and it is going to be a challenge for us to try to bring out A game as well."
(On preparing for both of Iowa's quarterbacks)
"We will be prepared for both. Again, they are going to run what they run and there is a reason why they have been successful. They have systems in place. They are an older veteran football team so their players they are able to redshirt their players and their players grow up in their systems. When you watch them on film you see a football team that is very, very fundamentally sound in all aspects of football. The way they use their hands, their overall pad level in the line of scrimmage. They have done a great job of developing that, that is a product of their systems and their systems being in place for many, many years."
(On Alex Ellis receiving a scholarship)
"That is one of the rewarding things of coaching. Alex Ellis has meant so much for our football team, not only on the field and his productively but off the field. He has the respect of every one of his peers. So to watch his facial expression, for him to come down there and to see the emotion. When he came back from break, he walked into my office and hugged me and said, `Coach, I rewrapped the present and I gave it to my mom.' He says, `you don't know coach, this changed our lives, this is a life changer.' That is why you get into coaching, to create that positive change. Alex Ellis is a tremendous example of that. Like I told Alex, we didn't do anything, he earned it, he deserved it, very fitting that he received that scholarship. It was great, I think that is a great illustration of the family environment that we have here. But also the standard and the expectation and when players play tot hat standard and expectation in our program, they are going to be rewarded."
