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TAXSLAYER BOWL: IOWA v TENNESSEEJanuary 2, 2015Josh DobbsButch JonesCurt MaggittJACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA IOWA – 28 THE MODERATOR: We're joined by the winning team, Tennessee. We'll let Coach Jones make an opening statement, then we'll take questions. COACH JONES: First of all, exceptionally proud of everyone in our football organization and our football family. That starts with our players. Their preparation, the entire bowl practice sessions, were outstanding. We had focus. Everyone talked about being a young football team, a first of many things. We were focused from the get‑go when we arrived in Jacksonville. Our football team was focused. I put it on the leadership of our football team, starting with Curt to my left, and Josh to the right. They showed me something. New Year's Eve, 11:00, they were in bed. We came here for a purpose. The purpose was to win the bowl game. Just very, very proud of them. We wanted to start fast. We thought that was critical in this game. We did start fast. I believe we only had three third downs in the entire first half. When we're moving on offense, we're generating first downs on first and second down. Our run efficiency on first down was very good. I thought Josh managed the offense. Defensively we did a great job. I thought the fourth‑and‑one stop was critical. We continued to maintain momentum. Some big‑splash plays, getting off the play on third down defensively. We had some missed tackles, but I think for the most part if you look at the bowl trends there's been a lot of missed tackles. I thought our players did a good job. I thought our coaches had great game plans moving forward. Special teams, the return game really helped us in terms of our coverage team. So, again, just proud of the resiliency of this football team. I still think it's the greatest story in all of college football. When you look at the youth of this football team, coupled with the most difficult schedule, an article came out a couple days ago that we have had the most difficult schedule in the history of college football. We knew our resiliency and our perseverance would be challenged this year. It's a tribute to everyone in our football family of staying together, focusing on the process, and they were rewarded tonight. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. Butch, given the plan that you had when you took the job, are you about where you thought you'd be with this program or further along with this group? COACH JONES: Well, we still have a long way to go. But I tell you what. I said this is the most challenging year I've ever in coaching, but the most rewarding year in coaching. We have great character in our football program. Again, it starts with Curt, it starts with Josh. Here is a football team that just finished the most successful academic semester in the history of the University of Tennessee with a 2.77 GPA this past semester. Not only are we starting to win on the field, we're starting to win off the field as well. That's a byproduct of the character that we have. They've shown great competitive grit. We still have a long way to go. But we're making progress. We talked about building this program brick by brick. We put another brick into the foundation today. The main thing of anything of setting a culture in place is learning how to win. Not just hoping to win, believing you're going to win and also deserving to win. These players, these kids, have been very deserving to win. They've been consistent in their approach all year. Never too high, never too low. We talk about consistency and performance every day in our football program. They've done everything and more so than we've asked of them. Q. Are you further along? COACH JONES: I would say we're still under construction. Q. Coach, what kind of a lift was it for your team seeing all that orange in the stadium? Describe the scene afterwards when the game was over. COACH JONES: Well, it started at the Vol Walk. We say we have the best fans in the country. That was a great illustration with this bowl game. It actually started at the hotel. The energy, I tell you, it started back in Knoxville. When we went to Gatlinburg. Our kids could see it. It's special to play football at the University of Tennessee. But it also comes with a very high standard and a very high price. We filled the stadium in orange. It means everything to our football program. Q. How do you assess the job that Derek did on Scherff? No sacks, but it seems like he did more than hold his own. COACH JONES: He did. He's a great, great player. I know Derek accepted the challenge. He's one of those individuals on New Year's Eve, we did the bed check, couldn't find him. But he was sound asleep at 10:00 at night. He does anything and everything to try to get an edge. Sacks are hard to come by. But pressuring the quarterback, impacting the quarterback can be just as big as a sack. Obviously Curt and Derek feed off each other. We also have some push inside. Very, very proud of Derek. He's been injured the last couple games, but he's extremely tough. I've said it, I'll continue to say it, he's mature beyond years. I love him. Love everything about him. Q. Josh, when you accepted the MVP trophy, you said it was just the start. Expound on that and where this program is heading. JOSH DOBBS: Coming into the season, our goal was obviously to make it a bowl game, and when we got there to win it, as we did today. This is the start of a foundation for something big going on in Tennessee, momentum we can carry into the off‑season. Start of something big, a lot of momentum going into next year. COACH JONES: We also finished. Everything in our program is about finishing. We talked about each team has its own life expectancy. We knew we only had today to live. Team 118 is over with. We needed to finish. Very proud of our seniors. They can have a say in building Tennessee football back. These memories tonight will serve them for a lifetime. Q. Curt, we talked so many times after games this season about how you needed to continue to stay the course. Was this validation of all the ups and downs you have had? CURT MAGGITT: Yeah, definitely. What you just said, thought about what happened in the team meeting today. I just spoke to the guys and told them it's been a rollercoaster of a season. Injuries, a lot of adversity came about. I think that brought us a lot closer together. Our youth stepped up and matured a lot. I'm grateful for my teammates. I'm just happy the way we played, the way we focused on each play. Came in at halftime said, That's not good enough. Defense, we just gave up a big drive. Need to get back together and play our game. I think our team has matured a lot. Q. Coach, talk about the touchdown, the trick play and the touchdown? Was that in the back of your mind or already planned for the game? COACH JONES: Well, we always have a catalog or inventory of trick plays that we rep throughout the course of the year. We definitely wanted to run that play. Had to be on a certain hash. Mike did a great job. He kept saying, We get the ball in this left hash, we're going to run it. It's one thing to call the play, it's another to execute it. Marlin lane did a great job. Josh got the ball out there. Vic Wharton did a great job of the stop and go and finished the play. Really the unsung hero, they brought a blitz off the end, senior Brendan Downs made that play. Brendan may not show up in the stat sheets with a catch, but he was directly responsible for that touchdown. You don't do what we've been able to do this year if you don't have great character. We have a great family environment. Our players love each other. That's the other thing that was great for me to see this bowl trip, is this football team has never been together in December and into January. To see them come together and build that brotherhood, but also the accountability to each other, to get their bodies, their minds ready to play. A lot of time in sport nowadays, we live in a SportsCenter society. Everybody sees the highlights, but they do not see the behind‑the‑scenes things. They don't see Curt in the gym at 6 a.m. working with Jason McVeigh for two hours. They don't see all the little things that add up to the big things. You don't earn anything by chance. Q. Coach, was the game plan on offense to attack the edges because of their physicality up front? COACH JONES: Well, that's basically been a part of our offense. But we did, we wanted to get the ball in the hands of our play‑makers. Our wide receiver corps has been decimated with injuries. We wanted to make a point to get the ball in the hands of Alton Howard and Von Pearson. Sometimes Josh has options on plays, not just pass plays but run plays, where he can hand the ball off or run the play. I thought Josh did a great job of really managing the offense all game long. Some of those sweeps were him reading it and others were pre‑called. We wanted to take advantage, get the ball to the edges, put the ball in the hands of our play‑makers. Q. Coach, talk about the impact of all the extra practices on the defensive line in particular. COACH JONES: Well, repetition is the key to everything. So to be able to get some young players like Dimarya Mixon, Michael Sawyers, get these individuals reps. Kendal Vickers, is very critical in moving forward. We have the standard and expectation by the way we're going to play defense at Tennessee. Every time you can get those extra reps, it's critical. Also not just on the practice field, but in the strength and conditioning room as well. We've had to play so many freshmen that a lot of times your strength gets set back because we don't call it a maintenance program during the season. We still expect everyone to make great gains. But you are on a different regimen, a different routine if you're redshirt as opposed to playing. So there's also a chance for those individuals to go in and really kind of restart the strength and conditioning program as well. Q. Coach and Josh, you said you wanted to strike early. What was your impression of Jalen's performance early? COACH JONES: Jalen is an individual who takes great pride in his performance. He had that look in his eye, as did our entire football team. But Jalen really set the temperament of the game for us, getting yards after contact, finishing runs. He just had that look in his eye of, Give me the ball, coach. He earned every yard he got today. Very proud of him. He's a young man who is extremely competitive. I'll let Josh talk more. JOSH DOBBS: Jalen did a great job of being elusive in space, running hard, running behind his pads. It's always great to have him in the backfield. Not only him, but all the runningbacks did a great job of moving the ball, behind their pads. It was great to see that production from the runningback position. Q. Butch, is that the best football you've seen Hurd play this year? COACH JONES: I will tell you this. Jalen is one of those individuals who has continued to get better and better and better. So I just think it's up to his standard, what we expect from him. Now this becomes a big off‑season. These individuals compete. I walked in the locker room a couple weeks ago, they already have a chart. There's a contest between Ethan Wolf and Jalen Hurd, a number of guys about their off‑season lifting totals, what they're going to do. These kids compete in everything they do. Jalen is one of those individuals whose game continues to elevate week in and week out. Q. Butch, you kind of made it clear from the beginning you wanted to get to a bowl game and win it. Does the 2015 team have a similar specific goal, wins and losses, or is it less specific? COACH JONES: We always have one goal and one constant goal in our program when it comes to our performance. It's to be a better football team each and every day. Each individual taking accountability for their own self‑determination. If you improve individually, you improve collectively as a football team. We already have the off‑season mapped out. We just have to continue to get better. We have to develop depth. We have to get stronger. We have to continue to recruit. But if you're a prospective student‑athlete, you want to be part of something special, you come to the University of Tennessee, point‑blank. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I just want these kids to enjoy the next couple weeks. I think it's very important. They've been through a grind. They had, what, three days off, three or four days off, to go home, see their families. Like I said, the investment they put in this game, the leadership that was shown to make sure the sports science, taking care of your bodies, not being out till 1, 2 in the morning, being responsible to each other. We talked about one thing to be a participant in the bowl game, but to go there to win the bowl game. They were focused all week. I'm going to put all that, but there's a plan in place. It starts obviously with depth and getting stronger as a football team. But these practices really, really helped us. Also the expectation, we've learned how to win. Our players expect to win now every time they step on the football field. To me, a culture in anything that you do, that's the starting process for anything. Q. Josh and Curt, can you describe the emotions when you rolled in of seeing all the fans. Butch, you said when it hits, you'll know it. To the Tennessee fans who think it's hit, has it hit? JOSH DOBBS: To see our fans, their turnout, was amazing, especially walking into the stadium, seeing all the thousands of fans that were here to support us in Jacksonville, far from Knoxville. It definitely felt like a home game for us. We're very thankful for our great fan support. CURT MAGGITT: Yeah, when we pulled up, it was just crazy. I honestly believe we have the best fan base throughout college football and even pros, in my opinion. They travel in a collective group. Like I said, when we pulled up, we actually had to pass a lot of the fans getting in because the line was so long. Just to see everyone come out and support, see 80% of the stadium orange and cheering the whole game, standing throughout, I'm grateful for them. We appreciate them dearly. COACH JONES: When we win, we win together. When we lose, we lose together, we bleed together. I'll never forget in the early stages of being here, we lost a game. I got a text message from Peyton Manning that said, I bleed with you. The first person that texted was Peyton Manning. You know, having Eric Berry last night last night in the hotel, Zach Fulton, Ja'Wuan James on our sidelines, it's part of who we are. Our fan base has been outstanding. They've been loyal. They've been nothing but tremendous to me, my family, to this football team ever since our arrival. That's what it's all about. They provided some advantage for us today in terms of even crowd noise and just energy and excitement. They've been that way all year. I love our fans. They should enjoy this because we win together. Q. (No microphone.) COACH JONES: Not yet. We'll have time to self‑reflect here once we get back. Now we have to go assemble a top‑three, top‑four recruiting class, which we will, because we're building and we have something special and great people. These two kids kind of define that. Q. Curt, could you speak to the impact Bynum made? CURT MAGGITT: I think Kenny did a great job. I think it's a standard in the linebacker room with coach, Coach Jones, Coach Thig, Coach Jancek. Their standard is very high. With Jakob and Kenny, they feed off each other, help each other. There's competition there, but they want what's best for the team. You're not going to see one of them get down if one of them is in. Kenny did a great job making the call, setting the fronts, making checks, being vocal. I got a lot of support for him and Jakob. COACH JONES: We always talk about when your opportunity presents itself, take advantage of it. Kenny did that tonight. Again, for him, his family, this will be something they'll remember forever. The opportunity to come home and play in front of your hometown in Jacksonville, play in the TaxSlayer Bowl, come away with a victory, hoist that trophy, it's very fitting. Kenny is an individual who has always been prepared. He understands the defense. He had his opportunity tonight. He made the most of it. Jakob, the same thing, from right here in Jacksonville. These two individuals, when we announced we were going to the TaxSlayer Bowl, you should have seen them. Again, these memories will last a lifetime. Jakob, one year of high school football, he continues to progress. Very proud of those two young men. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. COACH JONES: Thank you, Happy New Year. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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