What Willie Martinez saw from Boo Carter in his Tennessee debut
Boo Carter got 30 snaps in the Tennessee Football secondary on Saturday against Chattanooga. The freshman defensive back recorded a couple tackles and a couple quarterback hits in the 69-3 win.
More important than the numbers, though, was how Carter looked on the field. That’s what Tennessee defensive backs coach Willie Martinez liked about Carter in his debut.
“The moment wasn’t too big for him,” Martinez said this week. “And obviously we’d love to see what he looks like this game, because obviously you’re trying to make the biggest improvement from game one, game two.
“… We had a couple guys that played for the first time and he was one of them and (he) made some plays.”
‘You want to make the biggest improvement from game one to game two’
This game, the one that Martinez referenced, is No. 14 Tennessee against No. 24 North Carolina State Saturday night (7:30 Eastern Time, ABC) in the Duke’s Mayo Classic at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.
It’s a much tougher test for both Carter and Christian Harrison, Tennessee’s redshirt sophomore starter at the Star position ahead of Carter. Harrison got 23 snaps against Chattanooga, finishing with one tackle for loss.
Harrison and Carter are the answers at the Star position after junior Jourdan Thomas was lost to a season-ending knee injury early in training camp.
What Martinez is looking for from the two players is what he’s looking for from all of his players. A jump.
“You want to make the biggest improvement from game one to game two,” Martinez said. “There’s no preseason games, obviously, in college.”
Up Next: No. 14 Tennessee vs. No. 24 N.C. State, Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC
Tennessee treated Chattanooga like a preseason game, playing 47 players on defense and benching most of the starters at halftime, after building a 45-0 lead.
Carter and Harrison kept getting opportunities, though, as the Vols looks to expedite the learning curve.
“To be able to play the amount of guys you played in the first ball game, to get the experience, the ones that didn’t have it,” Martinez said, “we just want to see the alignments maybe a little bit better. The communication has to be a lot better. That’s where we got to improve on.
“And that’s player to player. It’s not so much someone like Boo or or whoever it is. It’s got to be between the whole back end. And we want to see the improvement of communication, getting lined up at a faster pace and getting our eyes when they belong.”
