Tennessee defensive backs coach Willie Martinez met with the local media on Tuesday morning following the Vols loss at Arkansas and ahead of their matchup against Florida.
Martinez discussed Will Brooks growth, issues in pass defense against the Razorbacks and much more. Here’s everything Martinez said on Tuesday.
More From RTI: Steve Spurrier Critical of Tennessee Football’s Offense Through Two SEC Games
On what point they felt like Will Brooks could be a real contributor for them
“You get in this business to help and develop kids. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why I got into business, is to get some guys in the program that you want. Obviously we walked into it. He was here already. Somebody that is a hard worker. Everything he does is first class. Whether it’s off the field, on the field. But football wise, you knew right away because as we were putting in the package three and a half years ago, whatever it was, right? And you obviously ask the questions in the room, you ask, ‘Hey, what are we doing in this quarters coverage?’ Bam, you get the instant answers, you know what I mean? Somebody else was a little bit delaying, whatever, and he was constantly doing that. But now when he gets his opportunity on the field early on and most of it’s going to be special teams because we are a space group, meaning we deal with space the most, the best special team players should be the guys at the skill position, let alone the defensive backs slash linebackers. They deal with the most, they read and react and he immediately makes an impact as we go through practice, drill after drill, very consistent. Finds out a way, how we’re gonna do it, how we’re gonna teach it. And since day one, he was that way. And so when it was given the opportunity to run down a kickoff the first year, or on a kickoff return or whatever— he knew how to line up, he knew his job, but then he was also productive. So there’s no surprise to see where Will Brooks is at because man, he’s the same guy every day and still trying to get better. I said it early on in camp, I thought, I really love this group. I really do. Whether it’s older, whether it’s younger, whatever it is, man, they’re in. They’re locked in, man. And a lot of it’s because of guys like Will Brooks. He’s not the only one in the room, but you have somebody that actually is doing it. He’ll be the first one when he makes a mistake, man, I own it, man. That’s on me. I got to be better. Just like a coach would do it and like he should do it if he made the mistake. So, great example. He does it every day.”
On Brooks biggest area of growth
“As a leader. He’s more vocal. He’s not afraid to say it. Before he was quiet and we got on him, we kept on telling him, ‘listen man, you’ve proven it. You’ve actually proved it.’ And that’s the best way of being a great leader is, a great teammate is a guy that does it the right way. Works hard. Productive. He’s earned it and so he’s more vocal.”
On the value of having veteran players who can teach young guys
“It’s highly important. Again, you’ve got a guy who’s a good player and again, you’ve got credibility. You got street credit. You’ve proven that you’ve done it, so that everything that comes out of your mouth— they should be listening. They should see it because, man, your peers will respect you. You’re a really good player and you’re smart and you’re tough— and that’s Will Brooks— then obviously that’s better leadership than I can create. I mean, I’m not playing the game. I’m the mentor. I’m the teacher. I’m not going to move off whatever my task is, and I’m going to keep on pushing, pushing, pushing, man. But when the players are doing it and they’re driving it, man. And that’s what we have and that’s what we’ve built here— he’s the poster child.”
On the term ‘flush it’
“It’s really the next play is the most important play. It is the next play. And whether you’re using that as an example of just flush it, man. We’re onto the next play. It’s really how we see it. That’s how I see it. You’re only as good as obviously the next one, really, to be honest with you. We already know what the results are. We’re moving forward. We want to get this bad taste in our mouths. And we’re just moving on. Because obviously we got a great opponent in Florida and they have a lot of really good players. This is a great league. It’s the best league in the country. The next team is the most important team, you know, the next play. So that’s how they look at it.”
On his evaluation of the STAR spot to this point in the season
“We knew that there was gonna be some growing pains going through it, but I think we’ve done a really good job of mixing Christian (Harrison) and Boo (Carter), their strengths and building off and improving on their weaknesses. And that’s really the weaknesses that neither one of them played the position here. One was here playing corner in Christian Harrison. The other is a freshman that came in here, has been here for 10 months and is learning how everything is done. And they have strengths and they’ve proven it in the games, and continually growing and getting better and better. We had a great practice today. Boy, I tell you, I think as a team we did. But also the communication was really good. And it really starts with them because they set the calls and it is getting better. It’s only, the experience, obviously you can only get it when you’re playing. So they’re gaining the confidence.”
On Arkansas having more open receivers than previous opponents had
“Yeah, you might be talking about zone coverages and stuff like that. And there was. We got to do a better job of tackling. That’s the first thing that shows up when you’re playing in the perimeter and you have to be really good against offenses. It doesn’t matter what the offense is. We got to be elite at the perimeter game. Whether that’s screens or whether a guy catches a ball. The yards cannot be after the catch. That’s what you’re trying to minimize. The yards after the catch. They cut some balls, obviously in one-on-one situations we didn’t win some. We didn’t win the one-on-ones that we’ve been winning. Again, that just comes from play making, that comes from fundamentals and technique. Not to take anything away from, like you just said, Arkansas’ is a good football team and they deserved to win. I mean we got to play better, you know, on our end of it we feel like there’s a lot of stuff there that was us too. We weren’t the smartest on certain plays. We weren’t as physical as we needed to be. We missed the tackle and we shouldn’t have missed the tackle that created a momentum change. We missed an assignment as a defense in a crucial moment on third down that allowed them to change the field on us. Man, we want to be a dominant defense. We want to be a lead defense. We want to keep the field position when we have the field position. I mean, offense are going to make plays. We want to be in tight coverage. We just got to play smarter. We got to play harder and longer in moments, especially back at the end of the game.”
On preparing to faces two Florida quarterbacks
“It doesn’t because most of it, they’re two really good quarterbacks. Both of them are athletic. You could say one is a little bit faster than the other man, but they’re very effective in what they do. We played against Mertz last year and he played a great game against us. He obviously played really well off schedule, made some big time throws and DJ now obviously he’s got a great arm, man. What a talent. Obviously he’s got great size, can make— both of them can make every throw and then both of them can hurt you in the quarterback run plays. We got to contain it. We just played one, we played two back-to-back, to be honest with you. So very similar to the guys that we just finished playing. And we gotta contain them and get to them and force them to throw off schedule and be effective in doing it.”
On the importance of effort in containing a dynamic offense
“I think it starts with our front, right? Or our front seven or if we’re pressuring, you know what I mean? It could be a perimeter player is keeping them in the pocket and, and that’s the most important thing. It has nothing to do— I mean, I thought our guys played hard. Did we play smarter sometimes? No. We could have played smarter in some moments. Did we play long enough and harder than our opponent? I think at times we saw that we didn’t. But containing the quarterback is just making sure you keep your rush lanes not going past the level of the quarterback or the ball and continue to push the pocket and where you’re actually containing it, and not let them out of the pocket. And if that’s the case and that happens, it happened to us a couple of times where we know they’re gonna throw the ball down deep. We got to be able to stay, we call plaster, but staying with our receivers where our eyes have got to transfer to stay on the wideout, not the quarterback.”
