Coach Jones Ready For the Vols to Kick Off 2016 Season

Ninth ranked Tennessee will carry their highest preseason ranking in over ten years into their opener on Thursday night.
Butch Jones’ team hopes to live up to their high preseason expectations as they welcome App State to Rocky Top.
Even though the Vols opener is just around the corner, they’re not trying to tone down the physicality in practice. Yesterday, they used the one-on-one drill, ‘The Circle of Life’.
Said Jones-“When we come to ‘The Circle of Life’, I want everyone to be on edge. I want everyone to be ready to go. Our captains actually requested that yesterday. That was something kind of a sudden change moment in practice. That’s really has been the challenge this week and moving forward. Just doing the small details of what it takes to play winning football.”
But it’s hard to know all the small details once the game kickoffs.
Said Jones-“This first game is the game of the unknowns. How can we communicate well. We have a number of players that will be playing for the first time, but also in the special teams game as well.”
Last year Tennessee struggled to finish, losing four games by 19-points. That has been an obvious sticking point for 2016.
Said Jones-“It’s not only finishing games off, but I think it’s also starting fast as well. We’ve tried to manufacture as much end-of-the-game type situations and build that confidence that they’ve been in those situations.”
‘Third down for what’ has been the battle cry for fans at Neyland Stadium the last couple of years when opponents have a third down situation, but that cheer has been turned down for what this season..
Said Jones-“We’re going to do things a little bit different on third down. We’ll mix up some different songs. So we want have ‘Third down for what’, but we’ll have some different songs to get our crowd energized.”