Everything From Tennessee LB Coach William Inge In His Media Availability

Tennessee LB coach William Inge talked to the media ahead of the matchup against UAB and talked about how the room has been performing early in the season. Here is everything he had to say.

On how he evaluates the linebacker performance from Saturday and things to clean up….

“The biggest thing just on our end, just a couple of small things, and usually it always comes down to details. Being able to finish some plays when you're in the open space. We had a few missed tackles that we have to clean up. That's probably the biggest thing on our end from our room that we've gotta make sure that we continue to address and clean up and go through and work on a day-to-day basis.”

On Edwin Spillman….

“We've been very pleased with him from a production, from a leadership, and from him driving on the field. He's been doing exactly what we would expect and anticipate, and at times, a little more. So we know that his role is consistently continuously growing and we know he's one of the upper guys in the room so where when we sub or the next man that comes in there isn't a drop-off. Often at times, he's actually doing better when he's in the game, so we've definitely been pleased with him thus far after three games.”

On why Ben Bolton has earned his trust…

“Because Ben Bolton has really endured what we call the battle of a Navy SEAL, where we put him through a lot of instruction, a lot of testing, and a lot of pressure. He's come out on the backside of that showing that from a leadership standpoint, he understands how to lead our defense. Also, from a performance and production standpoint, he knows how to drive the defense and put our defence in a scenario where he's not an inefficient player when he's on the field. He's gained our trust, and that's why on my end, I don't think twice about putting him in the game.”

On if he is leaning on Edwin for any tendencies on head coach Trenr Dilfer and UAB…

“We have had questions to him about, hey, are these some of the things that you guys saw that you did in high school from that standpoint? But the biggest thing on our end, we're going to trust and rely on our preparation and our understanding when it comes to how we get ready for the games. We know just because of who he is, where they're from, there's going to be some bags of tricks that we just have to be ready for on defense.”

On the challenges with the perimeter passing game and a linebacker in his system to play in coverage…

“It's just a matter of you having to do your job. The biggest thing that we tell our players is that you always have to understand the call itself, the concept of the call, and make sure you do a great job of defending high to low. Those are the biggest things that we have to be able to work on. When the ball is in the area, it belongs to us, so we've got to be able to make sure we can go get it.”

On what he sees from the Trent Dilfer and UAB offense….

“I would say multiple things that they do. They have a lot of personnel groups. Primarily, let's say the 11 and 12 personnel, but then you'll see they do a lot of good things that from my perspective, with number 11, who is a running back, is their wide receiver. Zero does a lot of great things so what they do is they want to get the ball to the skilled players out in space and have you make the one-on-one plays and do some things to try to get your eyes and your eye discipline a little crisscrossed to where they can get someone free over here and everybody's running over there.”

On the message to the defense and the biggest things they are stressing….

“Make sure you work to finish. Finish your plays, finish the sequence, finish on third down. That was probably the biggest thing for us on third downs. When you continue to peel layers away, it is making sure that you can be even more efficient on second down because some of the second downs led to a third down and medium or third down and short, and if you can be effective there now, you get them in the third down longs, and that's been our calling card. We have to continue to bounce back and get to where we've been and do what we do.”

On how concerned he is with the workload at the linebacker position…

“That's something that we're always looking at, and we tell the players from a development standpoint, you have to make sure that you're ready to go and you're doing the things that you need to do so that when your numbers are called, you can go in and can be effective and efficient. If there's one thing I would say looking over my shoulder that I wish I had done is probably had Jaedon Harmon in a few more plays from our side, and that would have taken, you know, 10 to 15 reps off of AC (Arion Carter). From us playing guys, I tell the guys, if you're prepared and you're ready, you're going to have a chance of going to the game.”

On what Jaedon did in the preseason to get in the game early…

“Just his level of preparation has been very good when it comes to him in the meeting room, but also the things he can do on the field, you can see that he shows flashes of being able to show up and being able to make some plays. As coaches, we say he can do some things we don't have to coach, and that's exactly what you love because he'll make a coach look really good just from his skill set when he's on the field. So those are some of the things that he's been able to do, and we trust him, and he's gonna be able to feel more.”

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