To'o To'o: Pruitt Has Vols DL "Buying In", Playing With A Lot of Energy

To'o To'o: Pruitt Has Vols DL "Buying In", Playing With A Lot of Energy

Henry To'o To'o has been the leader of Tennessee's defense, and he is off to another solid start in 2020. Jeremy Pruitt has now taken over the defensive line group, a position group that is pivotal to To'o To'o's success.

During Monday's media availability, To'o To'o said about what he has seen since Pruitt took the group over, "Coach Pruitt got them boys going. They got a lot of energy. Coach Pruitt has been doing a great job with them up front. They’re all buying into it. They all love it. They just have to come together as one and just play."

The Vols have not had a breakthrough player at the position in 2020, and Pruitt is continuing to diagnose and correct problems at the position group. He said on Monday, "We’ve got to play lower. To me, every play we should be four to six inches lower than what we are. We don’t have a lot of really large men. There are a couple of guys, but all of us need to play lower and play with more leverage. We need to play on the other side of the line of scrimmage. We need to be able to convert from RPO’s, play actions, off-the-run fakes, and be able to convert from run blocks to pass blocks. We had a lot of really good work this week, and we continue to see improvement there. There are a lot of positives, and we’ll see how we do on Saturday."

Pruitt also noted the progression of two freshmen defensive lineman, "Dom Bailey and Omari Thomas both have really good talent. Dom hasn’t played at all this year. He’s still learning and growing. There’s a big difference when you walk in there and you’re going to strike a guy in front of you that’s 22 years old compared to a 16-year-old. Some of that comes with time. I think Dom’s got lots of ability. When you look at Omari, he’s played more and more each game. I think the longer he plays, he’s going to continue to improve. He’s one of those guys that has to continue to learn to play lower."

Tennessee will travel to Arkansas on Saturday for a 7:30 ET kick-off on the SEC Network.