What Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel made his weekly appearance on the SEC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday, previewing his 19th-ranked Vols’ game against Texas A&M on Saturday afternoon (3:30 p.m. Eastern Time, CBS) at Neyland Stadium:

Opening Statement

“Excited for this weekend. Coming off the bye (week), chance for us to get a little bit healthy and get ready for this one. Really good,Texas A&M football team that we’re playing. You look at their line of scrimmage on both sides of the football, extremely athletic, big, strong physical defensively. You look at them statistically, they’re playing as well as anybody in the country. We got really good skill players across the board offensively, defensively. Special teams, have a dynamic return guy that can change the way that the game is played. Huge test for us this weekend. Really excited though to get back inside of Neyland Stadium with our fans. Gonna be a great atmosphere and guys are looking forward to playing Saturday afternoon.”

The importance of Tennessee protecting quarterback Joe Milton against Texas A&M’s defensive front

“Yeah, I think it’s like four straight weeks (with) five-plus sacks. They’ve gotten after the quarterback and they do that through scheme and pressures, but a lot of it’s just with their front four. And they do it not just on third downs. They do it on normal downs too. Those guys are physically gifted. They’re big, strong physical, but they’re extremely athletic. They bend well, they use their hands well. I think it’s really important in this one that you protect the quarterback extremely well give him a chance to get the ball out. You watch the games and man, there’s a lot of second-and-longs, third-and-longs. And those are situations you don’t want to be up against this front. So you gotta protect it well, but I think you also gotta strike some balance and have some effectiveness in the run game too, which is extremely difficult. These guys defend the run extremely well.”

The biggest challenge for the Tennessee defense against Texas A&M

“I’m gonna say the line of scrimmage is gonna be extremely important. That’s something I talked about with our football team here today. Because both sides of the line of scrimmage, affect the way that the game is played. So we gotta do a great job. They’re big, strong physical athletic on the offensive line too. And you gotta do a great job of having gap integrity and then you also gotta get to the quarterback and affect him off of their play-action pass and drop-back game and get off the field on third downs. They’re really good at skill positions out on the side of the football too. They got dynamic playmakers, so you gotta do a great job on those guys out in space and win some of those one-on-ones as well.”

What has led to the increase in sacks and tackles for loss for Tennessee’s defense

“I think one, the recruitment of some of the defensive linemen, adding length, athleticism (and0 the development of those guys and the guys that have been here on this roster the entire time. (It’s) understanding of the scheme, so that we’re playing and doing the right things at the right time. That can be twist games. When you’re trying to apply pressure with the front four, we’ve been better getting to the quarterback with a four-man rush, which changes the coverages that you’re able to play on the back end, but it all plays off of each other as well. Our secondary, doing a better job of playing press man (coverage) and win and force the quarterback to hold onto it another count. Or for some of our bracket coverages or zone drops, being in the right spot where again, you force the quarterback to hold onto it. He can’t get it out of his hands exactly when he wants to or needs to based on the rush up front. So it’s all 11 guys continuing to grow and continuing to play their role in how the unit’s gotta go play on that series of downs. But again, just Coach (Rodney) Garner and Coach (Mike) Ekler, those guys have done a great job of continuing to develop those guys fundamentally as far as their ability to affect the quarterback in the pass rush.”

Updating the status of Tennessee linebacker Keenan Pili

“We’ll see where we’re at here a little bit week by week. He’s not ready to go in this one, but we’ll continue to see where he is at. Our young guys are continuing to step up at that position, but Keenan’s a special leader and he still has been even while he has been out. He’s one of the first ones in the building constantly watching film. I think he’s been a real help to the young guys that are out there on the football field. And he’s fighting his butt off to get back as soon as possible. And obviously we feel like he’s a difference maker.”

Looking back at when he led No. 1 Oklahoma to a win at Texas A&M in 2000, scoring 22 points in the fourth quarter and if those games stay with him as a coach

Well, sure, I still remember that. And that was a huge, huge road win for our football team that year. They were a good football team. Really tough environment on that day, which typically is there. But it was a football team that continued to believe, continue to compete. Believed somebody would make a play. There were a lot of guys that made a bunch of plays during the course of that day. So yes, absolutely remember it. We talk about with this football team being able to reset and play from play to play and really not paying attention to the scoreboard until that thing says zero. And that’s the competitive mindset and attitude that you gotta have in this game. So those are things that we still talk about.”