Sophomore running back Eric Gray was the second to speak. Gray spoke about trying to rush for 1,000 yards, the Tennessee-Florida rivalry game, practicing while teammates are in quarantine, and why no Tennessee players have opted out.
Here’s everything Gray had to say:
On trying to reach 1,000 rushing yards this season:
“I think about that all the time. It still means a lot, still pushing forward with three games left. I think we have enough chances to go out and do it.”
On what the Tennessee/Florida rivalry means to him:
“It means a lot to everyone in this program. The game is something you come here to play in. It’s a big game at 3:30 on CBS. You know everyone is watching. I love it.”
On watching football while not being able to play and practicing while teammates are going through contact tracing:
“It’s tough not to be out there playing, watching all these guys playing and not being able to play. But it has also been a great way for people to get back fresh, get back healthy. Playing this SEC schedule, some guys get banged up. Some guys getting banged up so to be able to get back fresh. Those guys that are in contact tracing are still get to work out a little bit on their own and still come back on Friday to be ready to play on Saturday.”
How he would describe last week — the Vanderbilt game being cancelled:
“It’s always good for everyone to go home and refresh, restart, and to be able to spend Thanksgiving with your family. You have a practice to get back to the fundamentals and basics, and then being able to go home and spend time with your family. No one expected that going into the week, but being able to do that was good for everyone.”
On what it’s like for a game that you’re preparing for to be cancelled:
“You know it’s a shock to you. But I’m a guy that looks at the glass half-full. We can’t play, but this is a way for guys to get their bodies back and get refreshed. Be able to reset their minds and prepare for Florida this week.”
On what his strength is as a running back:
“My elusiveness, my vision and being able to make someone miss. I believe that’s what I’ve done my whole life and I feel that’s what my strengths are.”
On what point he realized he had those skills as a running back:
“Probably eighth grade. Because up until that point I played quarterback my whole life.”
If he liked playing quarterback:
“I did like playing quarterback, but in eighth grade, my offensive coordinator was like ‘the fast man on the team needs to play running back and not quarterback. So that’s how I started playing running back.”
On if he was okay with moving from quarterback to running back:
“Yeah I was okay with it. It was pretty fun.”
On why Tennessee was able to play better against Auburn”
“Against Auburn, we kept the pace going that we usually have in the first half. In previous games, we talked about we’ve gotta play 60 minutes. I felt like we did that in the second half. We have to keep improving upon that. And we prepared right last week. We prepared right against Auburn and we gotta do that against this week again against Florida.”
On how his body is holding up from the increased workload recently:
“With that time off I’ve been able to get my body right. I think I do a great job of taking care of my body after games and before games. So I’m pretty good.”
On how much he misses playing in Neyland Stadium:
“You definitely miss it. I was thinking about that just yesterday. We haven’t played at home in awhile. It’s going to feel great to be able to get out there and play and to just be in front of our home crowd. It’s weird not playing in front of your home crowd for six weeks. That’s unprecedented. Being able to go out there this Saturday and being able to play against a great team in front of home crowd will be pretty fun.”
On how he would feel about going to a bowl game without a winning record:
“A bowl game is always fun. It’s always a great experience. I remember going to the bowl game last year. Going to the TaxSlayer Bowl was a great experience for me as a freshman. Some of our guys last year never got to experience that. And our freshman haven’t got to experience that. Going to a bowl game is a great experience for everyone.”
On if he’s reminding the offensive line that he is close to 1,000 rushing yards with three games remaining this season:
“I haven’t, but I probably should. They go out there and prepare every week. I’m a team-first guy anyways, so I just want to go out there and get the most for my team and then at the end of these three games, let’s see where we’re at. I need to take them out for steaks or something.”
On the Tennessee-Florida rivalry:
“My dad is a big college football guy and he always talked about those games. He always talks about those games like Tennessee vs. Florida. When I was getting recruited, we were talking about what schools I wanted to go to and he was telling me that Tennessee-Florida rivalry, Tennessee-Alabama rivalry are big rivalry games that you want to play in and do well in because everyone is watching, everyone in the country is watching.”
On why no Tennessee players have opted out:
“You haven’t seen a lot of the opt-outs like you have at other schools and that just shows the mindset of our team. We are in it to win it; we are all in it together, everyone is in it together. We just want to go out here and flip the script, we want to get this train back on the tracks and keep going forward. We want to make sure that are doing everything preparing each week the right way so we can put our best foot forward.”
On what it’s like for guys and coaches when they’re in contact tracing:
“It really helps those guys who are in contact tracing because they’re still able to be in meetings. They’re still able to be there via Zoom and virtually. So they’re still able to learn and get those mental reps. The mental reps are just as important as the physical rep. For them to be able to do that Zoom, it gives them something to do throughout the day. They can still watch film on the opponent, they can still look at practice — they can’t practice, but they can look at practice and see what we’re doing and what they can do to help.”
On how important the bowl practices were to him as a true freshman last season:
“Those extra practices — if you look at our last game against Vanderbilt. Being able to go from Vanderbilt to the Indiana game, I felt like you saw a more complete team. Those extra practices throughout December allowed us to come together, go through the basics and it gave us a lot of time on our opponent. It gave us a lot of time to practice what we were doing and perfect what we were doing. Going to a bowl is a great experience. It allows you to build on your next season. It allows you to get in a game in to build on and see what you need to work on and what you already have in your program for the next season.”
On if he can imagine if he had to miss a large amount of time last season due to contact tracing and how much that would have set his development back as a freshman:
“It’s definitely unprecedented to miss those amount of days. I feel like what people have brought together to be able to work out a little bit, as well as be in meetings. That’s definitely helped those guys not miss so much. They can’t be out there physically, but they can be out there on their own and do a little weightlifting things with coaches to be able to just not miss everyone. They can miss some things, but they don’t have to technically miss everything.”
Go to the next page to see everything Deandre Johnson had to say.
