Mondays with Bobby, featuring Mitchell Henry

Bobby Petrino, freshman receiver Taywan Taylor and senior cornerback Tyree Robinson talk about Tennessee.

Bobby Petrino

Game film of Kentucky: “I like what I saw. Offensively I thought we really executed well. Our offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage for the most part, which allowed us to run the ball and throw it.

“We didn’t make a lot of mistakes, assignment-wise. When you’re having the proper alignments and proper assignments it gives you a chance to execute and we really did a good job.

“Defensively I thought we played with great effort. We had guys flying around and playing hard. We gave up some big plays and we gotta get that corrected, but for the most part we played well.”

Areas to improve: “We got a lot of things we need to improve on. We gotta be more consistent. Offensively we gotta take care of the football and convert third downs. I wasn’t happy at all with our third downs and how we executed on third down. We gotta be able to run the ball with more power at the end of the game and keep the ball, not punt it back to them.

“Defensively you continue to work on tackling and do a better job of tackling. Intercepting the ball – we had like three balls that hit our hands that we didn’t get so we have to do that.

“We have a whole lot of things that we can improve on. I think that’s what’s most-important to me this week is we come out in practice and everyone understands we’re gonna work hard and get better each day.”

Third-down conversions/conservative play calling: “In the second half we probably could have been a little bit more aggressive. We still had some opportunities to convert third down and we didn’t do it.”

Doughty under pressure: “I was really happy with the way he played. It was good to see him, when you went back and watched the video, there were a number of times when he delivered the ball, followed through and got hit as he was throwing it and was still accurate and made the completions.

“That’s always something you’re concerned about with a quarterback that hasn’t played in a couple years is how he’s gonna react after he gets hit. Brandon did a great job. He didn’t blink, he focused downfield – that’s really, when you talk about playing the position of quarterback, that’s where courage shows up is your ability to stand in the pocket, continue to focus downfield knowing that you’re gonna get hit. He did a great job of it.”

Running backs: “We feel like we have a lot of weapons. We didn’t even get Ace (Anthony Wales) going yet. Just didn’t work out that way. We had the package for him and a plan for him. Leon (Allen) got real hot in the third quarter and showed his burst and his power and he has a combination of both.

“But it’s a good group of running backs. We gotta keep ‘em fresh and use ‘em and when one guy gets hot we continue to feed him.”

Tennessee: “I know a lot of the players, either in recruiting or in going against them. They’re big, physical offensive front. Rajion Neal’s a guy I’ve known since high school that a very, very good runner, has really good instincts and good vision.

“A.J. Johnson the middle linebacker is a guy that’s a really good football player, really understands the game. There’s some of them that are very familiar and then some of them that are new.”

Daniel McCullers: “He’s a big guy. He’s a big physical guy that moves around pretty well. We just gotta do a good job with our pad level and finishing and playing hard. Those guys we went against last week were big, physical guys – not as tall, but they were big and physical.

“It’s really just relying on your technique and trusting your technique and continuing to work hard at it. The good thing is inside we’re experienced, and then Forrest Lamp is going to be a very, very good player. He played as well as anybody.”

UT O-line: “Yeah, they’re good and they know what they’re doing running the ball, so we got to do a good job of making sure we’re where we’re supposed to be, we’re in our gap responsibility. We use our hands – we need to use our hands better.

“We’ve got a good group of linebackers so we just gotta be real sound in our gap responsibilities and keep our linebackers clean and let them make tackles and not get out of our gaps on the defensive front.”

WKU D-line: “As a coach you’re never satisfied. You’re always working and striving to get better and be better at it. We accomplished our goal which was to go in and find a way to win the game. We certainly didn’t do everything right, but when you look back on it and really evaluate the film, we had guys playing with really good effort and striving to do what we were asking them to do.

“We made some mistakes, but they were attempted to do what we asked them to do and playing with great effort. Whenever you do that you give yourselves a chance to win.”

WKU receivers vs. UT secondary: “Yeah we’re gonna have to wait and see. We’ll get into matchups and see how they all play out, it’s kinda how it works out. We get to watch them on video really just from last week’s game. They’re very, very good. Very sound in their technique and very well-coached. It’s gonna be seeing how we matchup when we get going against them.”

Tennessee vs. Butch Jones: “We’ve studied Cincinnati and winter and summer long so we had a good idea of what their package is. They’re good coaches. They really understand what they wanna do and their guys at Cincinnati played extremely well and extremely hard.

“We’re gonna have to go out and play our game and do the things that we do well.”

Similar offenses: “There’s a lot of similarities in a lot of offenses. But he knows what he’s doing. He’s does a good job of it. Been doing it a long time.”

Experience in SEC away games: “I think it helps. I think the experience and being on that stage and understanding how you deal with the noise and how you’re able to communicate and having to do things with your vision. You might not hear exactly what the calls are, but you’re able to read the signals and everyone has to be disciplined and do it.

“No question that the more experienced you are, then the better you are at doing it.”

Conditioning: “I think our strength staff and our trainers did a really nice job. I was very, very concerned going into the game because Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday it was hot and humid and much more difficult to get our work done than the previous three weeks because of the weather and the heat.

“Our guys fought through it, but you worried about what you had left and ready for the game. I thought we did a nice job in getting in the cold tubs and hydrating and stretching and doing everything that you could. Our guys held up. I don’t remember a lot of cramping going on. I think we did have to utilize three or four IVs at halftime, but they did a good job with it.”

Taywan Taylor

First game: “I felt good. I prepared well, prepared good all summer. We came in with a great attitude everyday ready to come to work, just listening to my coaches, respecting what they had to say, studying outside of football. I just came in, I tuned everything out and just came in and worried about the game and the game only. I played well, I think I did great my first time out there.”

Doughty: “Brandon, he’s great. He’s been working hard all offseason and it showed Saturday. It showed what he could do and he just came out, he was calm and cool and he just played well. It just all paid off for him and I think he had a great performance.”

Things learned: “I learned a lot. I just adjusted to the game speed, I think I’m used to it now and I’m ready for what’s ahead and what’s in store for us for the season and I think preparing all offseason, Saturday’s game got me ready for what’s ahead of us in the future.”

Tyree Robinson

Being in UK’s backfield: “I really can’t call it because that’s just something the coach had called in for us and it just turned out to work well for that game. Depending on the offense we’re going against, it’s gonna be based on the defense then. Really can’t call it out right now.”

Tennessee: “I watched a little of them. They look real good. They look good, we just gotta come this week prepared, ready to practice and everybody’s just gotta be tuned in to what the coaches got planned for us. They look good.”

Prior SEC away games: “It prepared me a lot because when I was a (sophomore), that’s when we had to face Alabama and LSU sophomore year, now that I’m a senior I know what to be ready for when we get there. I know the crowd’s gonna be unbelievable and I know we just gotta be zoned in on the field because I know a lot of things can get out of hand in a hostile crowd like this, but we just gotta be able to flip the chapters, basically. Something happen, let’s just flip the page and keep going.

“My freshman year I wasn’t used to no crowd like that. Coming out of high school we didn’t have a crowd nowhere near like that. Going out there, I was like, ‘Wow.’ It was amazing to see, honestly. It had me ready to play, playing in front of a big group of people.

“Everybody’s really been communicating with each other. Even freshmen been talking to the older guys. Everybody just telling each other what to expect and how to take this game on, how to take this week on practicing starting (Tuesday).”

UT’s receivers: “Honestly, I done faced a couple receivers like that going against LSU. Even UK last year had some big receivers as well. This week, ain’t gonna be no different, just gotta go with the right mindset first. When you go with the right mindset, everything follows after that.”

2-0 vs. SEC: “Honestly, it’ll cross your mind, but you can’t let it be in your mind because that’s when you’ll start worrying about the wrong thing. With us, we based on one game after the next. We got last week over, now we gotta focus on this game and just like another team we play, we can’t let no team be bigger than what it is. If you do that, you’ll go there and start mistakin’ real bad.”

From Monday’s Sun Belt teleconference

Bobby Petrino

“I’m very proud and excited for our players on our game last week. We worked extremely hard through camp in our preparation for it. Our assistant coaches did a very, very good job in the preparation and the adjustment during the game. It was a really good win for us.

“It was an exciting game in Nashville and our fans did a good job of traveling and supporting us a and now we get ready for another big game down in Tennessee against the University of Tennessee.”

2-0 SEC start: “I’d be great for our program. Anytime you get to compete against one of the best conferences in the country and excel and do well, it helps you in recruiting. It certainly would be a real boost for our recruiting efforts.”

First true road game: “Tennessee looks like a very, very good team on video. It’s a huge challenge for our program. What I’m really concerned about right now is that we practice the right way this week, we work extremely hard in practice at getting better and doing a better job in our preparation.

“Somebody once said you make the greatest improvement between Week 1 and Week 2. I’m not sure who said that, but I hope they’re right.”

Improvements: “We need to take care of the ball better and make sure we secure it and do a better job on third downs on offense. Defensively, defending the run. We certainly have a lot of room for improvement.”

Antonio Andrews: “Antonio’s a very, very talented young man. He can do so many different things. His ability to run the ball and break tackles and get extra yards after contact really showed up in the first half. He was very, very important to our win. Also did a great job in catching punts and returning kickoffs. He can catch the ball out of the backfield – he can just do a lot of things. He’s a good weapon for us.”

Brandon Doughty: “I was real proud of the way Brandon played. He really did a nice job of distributing the ball, taking what the defense gave him. For him to do that in his first game and be so efficient, it was great to see.”

Mistakes: “We can’t turn the ball over. That’s as simple as it gets. We have to do a great job of taking care of the ball and understanding the speed of the game. He (Andrews) was just trying to make the extra-effort play and cutting back and you gotta know you’re gonna get contact when you do that and get both hands over the ball.”

Filed under: Football, Talkin’ bout the Tops