Everything Rodney Garner Said Ahead of Tennessee vs Oklahoma

Tennessee football held their second day of press conferences ahead of their game against the Oklahoma Sooners. With that being said multiple coaches took the stand today, including Rodney Garner. He had a lot of valuable things to say about the Vols. Take a look.

Garner on Where The Tennessee Defense Is At

Tennessee defensive line coach Rodney Garner at the 2021 Music City Bowl NCAA college football game at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn. on Thursday, Dec. 30, 2021. Kns Tennessee Purdue | Calvin Mattheis/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

“Well, I would say I don’t think anybody’s pleased with where we are at this moment. Obviously, last couple of games, I think we haven’t played up to the standard that we expect, that the kids expect. And obviously, we’ve got to do better, everybody, as players, coaches, everybody. We’ve got to coach it better, and we’ve got to execute it better. So we’ve got to fit it on all levels. It’s never going to be about one level. I mean, run fits it starts first, second, and third level. Everybody’s got to have ownership in it and understand, hey, when one guy doesn’t do his job, the stress that it puts on everybody else. But we’ve also got to be better teachers and make sure that we’re stressing that.”

Garner on The Fixable Things

“All the things are fixable. And that’s the thing, when you’re sitting there and you’re watching the film on Sunday and you’re watching it with the guys and you’re going through it, you see the plays that you’re giving up, man, and I know that’s what’s frustrating. A lot of it is about what you’re doing, how you’re self-inflicting things. And so we have to be more attentive to details and understand that you have to take care of the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves. So fix it when it’s small, and it won’t ever become a big problem. And so that’s the thing that’s encouraging about it, that you know that these are things that can be corrected, that must be corrected, because that’s what you expect of yourself. That’s what this program expects of us, and that’s what it should be. We are an elite program. We expect the players to be on an elite level. And we’re not meeting that standard. We’re not coaching at that level. We’re not doing anything at that level. So the room for improvement is there. So, I think everybody’s prideful. Everybody wants to be really good. So it’s a challenge that we’ve got to meet head-on. That’s what being a man is, as far as growing up. And you have to face challenges, and you can’t run away from them.”

Garner on The Challenges of Red Zone Defense

“Like I said, if we just sat there and talked, we got to play better at all levels and not just in the red zone, before you get to the red zone. It’s all areas, all field zones. We’re just not executing at the standard that we expect and what it takes to play at a championship level. So we have to accelerate that and we’ve just got to fix the minor details. We’ve got to fit everything properly from a rush lane standpoint to a run gap fit, to just doing the minor details of everything, everybody doing your job, staying locked in on your job. Don’t start overpressing. Because things may not be going right, man, you’re trying to do somebody else’s job, and then you give up something even bigger. So just playing complementary football on defense, and I tell my guys on all three levels, the front’s got to think about second level, the second level’s gotta think about the third level. Everybody’s got to play complementary and understand what their jobs are and make sure they’re doing their jobs at an elite level. And if we can get all those things tied together, then we’ll play back to the standard that we all are accustomed to.”

If you are interested in the rest of what he had to say, click HERE.

Garner on Where The Tennessee Defense Is At

Garner on The Fixable Things

Garner on The Challenges of Red Zone Defense

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