Henry To’o To’o discussed his performance to this point in the season, what the linebackers worked on during the bye week, playing Arkansas for the first time, what he’s seen from the defensive line, and being a leader.
Here’s everything To’o To’o had to say:
On the improvements of the defensive line:
“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.”
On playing Arkansas for the first time:
“I feel like every single SEC team plays exactly the same. They do a lot of RPO’s. They like getting the ball on the edge. So, it’s pretty much nothing that we haven’t seen throughout the season. Our coaches came up with a great game plan yesterday. Now we got to go throughout the week, find little tendencies of (Arkansas) and take it on from then to Saturday.”
On becoming a better tackling team:
“We do a lot of drills, a lot of open-field tackles. Coach Pruitt is right, we did miss a lot of tackles in that game (against Alabama). This off week that we had was huge for us. We did a lot of tackling drills with the offensive guys, a lot of open-field tackles with them. We spent a lot of time in individual – trying to get that and making sure we don’t overrun things. This week was huge for us.”
On the importance of the bye week:
“It was huge. We needed this week off and we needed it as a whole. Not only the defensive side, but the offensive side. We just needed to regroup, figure out our fundamentals. You go through the season, you go through a lot of games and you lose track of your fundamentals and what got you to the point where you’re at. So it was huge for us this week.”
On being one of the leaders of the team:
“It honestly comes with integrity, it comes with consistency. Being able to do the right things at all times. I don’t have the right to yell at somebody and tell them that they’re doing something wrong if I’m not doing it right. So, if I’m not doing it right, I don’t have a right to yell at somebody. I take it upon myself to try to do it right all the time – to try to put the extra work in, to try to put the extra time in so that I can lead these guys in the right way. So that I can try to navigate where I defense is supposed to be and how we’re supposed to play. It’s little things that I need to fix. I just try to motivate our guys. We know how we can be. We know our top tier. I just try my best to be able to get our guys going.”
On what Tennessee has learned about last season’s turnaround:
“We’ve been down and out before. We’ve been counted out before. We know what it takes to get back. We know what it takes to be (back) from our lowest point. Coach Pruitt harps on us all the time, ‘We’re going to find a way.’ No matter what it is, no matter how we’re looking, how we’re doing, we’re going to find a way to come out with the results that we want.”
On his play to this point in the season:
“I kind of expect a lot out of myself. I always evaluate the bad things in a game, no matter how much good I do. I try to look at the bad, to learn from it, to grow from it. So, through these past five games, I felt like I didn’t really exceed where I wanted to be. I didn’t really do the things on the field that I wanted to do. This week made me focus on obviously tackling, making calls, getting calls in faster to the guys. That’s probably a huge part I see of my game that I need help on.”
On what Tennessee needs to do to play better in the second half:
“Execution. Creating turnovers. There’s a lot of opportunity out there for us to create turnovers, to create strip fumbles, catch interceptions and being able to execute the game plan. Not having a lot of mental errors and just coming out and playing clean football. As long as you play clean football and give your all, that is something we’re trying to harp on the rest of this season.”
On how Tennessee can improve in coverage on defense:
“Back to the fundamentals. Not going to lie to you, we did it in camp and kind of strayed away from it as the season went on. We just got to be able to practice the fundamentals over and over and over again, no matter how stressful it can be. Fundamentals will take you a long way – that’s what got us to where we are. We just gotta harp on it. We have to have in-depth practices with it. If the coaches aren’t harping on it, we gotta do it as players. So, that’s something we have to execute on.”
On how the young linebackers looked during the bye week:
“The young players are doing a great job with buying into what the coaches are telling them, buying into what the older guys are trying to teach them. Like we said the whole time, the bye weeks are huge for fundamentals. The younger guys are doing a great job, especially on the d-line, the outside linebackers and the DBs and especially at the inside linebacker position. They’re doing a great job.”
Go to the next page to see everything Eric Gray had to say.
