Ever since he arrived to the Tennessee football program as a freshman in 2019, defensive lineman Elijah Simmons has been a fan favorite.
The 6-foot-2, 340-pound lineman is a force of nature on the defensive line when things are working in his favor. Simmons has the ability to wreck an opposing offensive line, take down a running back looking for a gap up the middle, or just push offensive linemen out of the way for another teammate to enter a gap.
“Elijah is a powerful big man,” defensive line coach Rodney Garner said during fall camp last week. “He does have initial quickness and short-area quickness. He has built-in pad level and leverage.”
Simmons shows flashes of great potential but hasn’t been able to put it together for an entire season yet. While injuries have played a role in that, Simmons’ inconsistency on the field has held him back throughout his career.
As Garner put it last week, Simmons’ biggest enemy is “when fatigue sets in.”
Simmons switched up his number heading into his redshirt senior season. Once donning the No. 51, Simmons is now going to be wearing the No. 10 jersey. Funny enough, the other No. 10 on Tennessee’s roster is 5-foot-10, 165-pound receiver Squirrel White.
“Just basically, it’s time now to change who I want to be in the future,” Simmons said last week about the number switch. “I want to go to the next level, so I need to buy in. I feel like I need to buy in and just take the coaching just how it needs to be. That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
The buy-in aspect is something that Garner and the Tennessee coaching staff have also identified with Simmons’ game.
“Everybody knows that he switched his number to 10, and if you’re a defensive lineman wearing number 10, you need to be elite,” Garner said about Simmons. “My challenge to him — sometimes No. 10 shows up to practice, other times No. 51 shows up. He just has to figure out who he is and what he wants to be. No. 10 and No. 51 are different guys, so if he’s going to be 10, then he has to get himself in really good shape and be able to play out the whole game like 10.”
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With all the talk of becoming more consistent, though, Garner does feel like Simmons has improved in that area throughout his work during the offseason. Garner specifically mentioned Simmons getting into better shape, growing, maturing, and maybe even battling a feeling of unfulfillment based on where he was coming from. Package all of those things together and it makes for a more determined player on the field. A No. 10, if you will.
“He had a really good spring, and like I told him in the evaluation after spring ball, the challenge was going to be, is he going to pick up where he left off in spring, or were we going to start all the way back over again?” Garner said. “So, I can tell you thus far through camp, he is having a really good start in camp. I think he sees that. So hopefully he is gaining a bit more confidence. Hopefully he likes the direction he is headed in, and we all just have to keep encouraging, pushing, prodding, and all that.”
Rodney Garner and the Tennessee coaching staff are going to continue to pour into Simmons as he grows as a football player on the field. But just like most things in life, you have to be willing to be pushed, too. And that’s Garner’s message to Simmons as he continues the grind of fall camp.
“If you can’t push yourself and won’t allow others to push you, then we have a problem,” Garner said about Simmons and his entire DL room in general. “We are not going to be able to get where we want to get to. I think now, he is allowing his teammates to push him when he hits that wall. He is allowing the coaching to push him in the right direction and not let it be all a negativity thing. So, hopefully he is growing and maturing in that area right there.”
Just like Garner did, Elijah Simmons recognizes the differences between No. 51 and No. 10.
“Obviously 51, he was a guy that he strained sometimes, he took off some plays, but he always wanted to finish,” Simmons said. “No. 10 continuously fights, strains and competes every day. Come out every day ready to play, ready to fight the next opponent. Each and every day, get better. That’s the main difference to me.”
Vols DL coach Rodney Garner details his challenge for R-Sr. Elijah Simmons entering the 2023 season pic.twitter.com/XNRU5nniFH
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) August 11, 2023
