In February, Tennessee made a splash hire to bring a former Vol legend back to the building. The Vols hired former First-Team All-SEC defensive end and Super Bowl participant Robert Ayers Jr. as a defensive assistant to the staff.
Ayers’ experience at the college level as a first-round draft pick and as a longtime NFL veteran is a huge benefit for players that are looking to achieve the same goals.
One talented young player, in particular, gave credit to Ayers for helping him with training and workouts over the summer.
Sophomore EDGE rusher Joshua Josephs projects to be a valuable piece for Tennessee this season following the departure of star EDGE rusher Byron Young this offseason. Josephs said on Friday that despite getting on the field a fair amount as a freshman, he feels much more confident in his moves as a sophomore because of the summer training.
“Just working on it,” Josephs said about the origin of his newfound confidence. “On the offseason I took a lot of time to work on my craft. And with Coach [Robert] Ayers here, he also helped me. But back at home I have a really nice trainer that helped me take strides.”
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Josephs explained that he had an array of moves to get to the quarterback as a freshman but didn’t have the confidence to put much of it to use during in-game scenarios. Despite only using one move last year, though, Josephs still finished a productive early-career season with six solo tackles, six assisted tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, one sack, and two passes defended.
“I see it in myself, like, I’m going to be confident this year,” Joshua Josephs said. “Y’all will see it too.”
Tennessee veteran defensive line coach Rodney Garner also praised Ayers’ work during spring ball back in March.
“When he says something, those kids believe him and hang on to it,” Garner said. “He’s very passionate about it. He knows what he is talking about, so I think he’s only going to help us to get better and become a better football team. Hopefully, one of the things we said coming out of last season that we needed to improve on was being better on a four-down pass rush. Hopefully, he’ll be able to bring a lot of (insight) to that, to be able to help us improve in that area.”
Robert Ayers Jr. has played a lot of football in his day… 120 professional games in total, to be exact. Over the span of his nine years in the league, Ayers Jr. ended his career with 265 tackles, 108 quarterback hits, 51 tackles for loss, 34.5 sacks, and even scored a touchdown turning his first season in 2009.
Now, the former Volunteer great is set on helping the next generation of Volunteers become the best they can be.
