 First question, state championship game Friday, 7pm. Page, Knoxville West, little revenge game. Yeah, Sun's looking forward to it, so it should be fun. I'm heading out right after practice. So yeah, well, hopefully I don't run into all that traffic. That's what's going to be the bad part. Have you been to town in the night? Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah, 24, yeah, it's not going to be good. I'm not a patient guy either, so it'll be interesting. Please, please, baby. There you go. It's the only way to go into Chattanooga. OK, all right. Craig, the month that Ryan just did, his gross punting average, I mean, best November in NFL history and type of the fifth best single-month gross average. And 12 of those 18 punks were inside the 20. I mean, is it getting tougher to find areas for him to improve now? Obviously, we're very happy with Ryan and what he's doing right now, but I think there's always ways for him to improve. I think that's one of the best things about him. He's always out there looking to improve. And I know probably one of the things that we're going to continue to harp on with him is those plus 50 punts. And I know last week we had, I think, five out of his seven punts were inside the 12-yard line. But all Ryan talks about is his last punt where he got a touchback. So that's just his mindset. And he's always willing to get better and always willing to learn. So obviously looking forward to going out here today and helping him out. But obviously, we're excited about him. And he's doing a really good job for us. I know Mike was, I think if some money was complimentary, I guess the special teams as a whole, I guess the kind of stuff that was the standard on Sunday, and maybe even coverage as well. How'd you like it across the board? Yeah, I think our guys are getting better. The younger guys are stepping up. I think Colton Dahl had a really good game. It was really fun to watch him go out there and make a tackle in space. And Braves does a really good job of, when we do make plays on special teams, he shows our whole team how excited the defense gets, how excited the offense gets. And it just sets a standard out there and sets the tone. And we talk about sending messages all the time, whether it's our kickoff coverage unit or our punt team. It gets our guys going. So I thought our guys did a really good job on the return unit. We've got to cut back down on penalties. And I know we had one, but we lost 20 yards of field position on it. And I thought it was blocked really well. We just, we got to do the little things to continue to help our team win. For the guy like Dahl, who's never really played special teams. And obviously he's been an offensive player most of his life. What's the trick to getting him to buy in, to be in a defensive type of guy, going down and working on things like making tackles? Sure. I think we do a really good job early on of trying to talk to these young guys about having a role on special teams. They're used to playing offense, they're used to playing defense and playing a lot in college. But in order for them to make an impact usually early on in their career, it's going to have to be on special teams. So it's us getting with them early on. Coach Raible sets the tone with those guys as far as them understanding their role. And then it's just our job to continue to try to work with these guys and develop them. When they do well on special teams, they might get more of an opportunity on offense or defense. So we really enjoy working with these young guys and especially them seeing the confidence that they build on special teams. And hopefully it ends up helping them on another unit too. What was communication like in the play sequence where you get to spike and get the field goal unit out there? Is that a situation we obviously know could be needed in a hurry and that's how they got out there and got it done? Yeah, communication, whether it's Coach Raible or Tim, myself, when we figure out that ball, there's an opportunity for us to still score points. So that gets set early on right away. And it's stuff that we work on constantly. You hear Coach Raible, whether it's down-down clock or down-down timeout, certain things like that, that we end up doing situational-wise. But right at the jump, Coach Raible will be talking like, hey, listen, we either got no timeouts or one timeout left. Let's get everyone ready, so it's my job to go and talk to the kicker, the punter, and the snapper. Hey, listen, we've got certain timeouts where we have no timeouts. We've got to be ready for certain situations like this. And obviously our offense did a great job of getting us in field goal range, and Nick was able to put it through. In those situations, is Nick communicating, hey, I want the offense to try and get the ball to a certain spot or a certain side of the field, or is he kind of bigger? Can't be choosers. I'll go out and kick it. That's the greatest thing about Nick. He really doesn't care what hash it's on. Some kickers will want right hash or left hash. Some of them, it's going to depend on the win situation like that, where they'll ask. Nick's just a gamer where he's like, hey, listen, it doesn't matter. I'll kick it, which is great for an offensive coach, too, because he doesn't have to worry about a certain hash to go on. But again, there's different situations where we could need it on a hash because of the weather and things like that. So Nick just does a really good job. And I was just happy for him to make it and having a situation that we practice all the time, that we do in practice, and it shows up in the game and we end up executing it. It depends a lot of variables inside, outside of win. He put that one through from 53. What's the longest you've seen him make since he's been here? So we try to get back. We don't want to overkick, Nick. But I've seen him make 58 yard kicks for us. I've seen him make 57. We don't try to really go back really too far in practice because not really necessary his age, but there's really no need for him to do one in practice from 60-some yards where he's just trying to go and kill the ball and maybe get hurt. So we'll practice a little longer field goals in certain situations, and they sure love it when they have the wind behind them, too, when we do kick really long runs. What's some of the new guys in the personal department, like Rand, AR, Chad, when they first got here, they said they made an effort to get coaches taken from you for special teams. What was that process like? Is that something that you need to your experience? I want to say unique, but it's great when they're going to ask for an opinion on certain guys. I've been blessed a lot of places that I've been where the GM or the assistant GM or personnel people will come and ask for my opinion on certain things, which is great because you know you're giving them some feedback, and they want to learn, they want to listen. They might have a different opinion about a certain player, but that's what's great. We can sit down with Rand or A-Rob or Chad, and we can talk about certain guys. But it was a good process going on that we had in the spring, and it was fun to do. What are any particular guys that were the fruit of those conversations, like maybe Gifford or? Oh yeah, I mean, we knew about Luke, and obviously he was a big get, and we like how Luke's playing right now, these past couple games. Yeah, so Luke was a part, Colton Dow, a guy that played a little bit on special teams in college. So we understood that there were some guys that could end up helping us. You seem to have much better games when you get to go against a divisional opponent the second time around in a season. Is it just having seen them again, motivation, maybe be able to fix a few things that didn't maybe work right in the first game, or you just run better later in the year? Not too bad, not too good, these first two divisional games, but yeah, I think you just, you watch the film, you make corrections, seeing the things that we need to do better as an offense and individually, and then try to correct them throughout the week, and then just go out there and play a game and be better than the one before. You had 43 yards, I think, in India in the last game. Does that maybe make you wanna go out and try to, you know, in the frame of the offense, have a better game on this Sunday? Yeah, definitely, 43 yards makes you wanna cringe. Yeah, I have to be better, I have to play better. And, you know, that's gonna be my main focus. This whole week is just playing better and being efficient in the run game. A productive day on Sunday, is that 71 yards, a couple scores? Would you watch tape back? How do you feel like things went and, I guess, you're always a perfectionist? Did you see things that you could have even done better on Sunday? Let's just say I could have had a lot more. I feel like I could have had a lot more, yeah, so. I'm too happy about it. I wanna tell you when you see that. Yeah, you know, just watching it, learning from it is tough, you know, when there was ops and, you know, when I didn't take advantage of them, but just growing from it and then just try what our next game comes, take advantage of those opportunities when they're presented. How much do you talk with the offensive line during the week, especially as they've had so many moving parts? Yeah, we all just try to communicate all throughout the week. You know, I told them on yesterday, you know, I didn't take advantage of opportunities that were in front of me. You know, I feel like they did a great job giving me opportunities. You know, I gotta be better and let's just keep on building. Derek, you expressed up here for having prepared against 9,000, you had to 17 out of the touchdowns, so listen, how much are you able to appreciate what you've done and what you are doing while in the middle of doing it? Well, I mean, I didn't even know the list or under the 9,000 was coming up, but I think just us being focused on winning, you know, you kind of let that swing by a little bit and not really think about it because we've just been focused on playing better and focused on one game out of a week, one game a week at a time and winning. But you know, I think that's cool. You know, it's surreal for me to be able to list with the names I'm on and, you know, very thankful, but I'm still got work to do, so I'm still focused on that. Given where you stand and you talked openly about growing up, wanting to be in the NFL, wanting to play at this level, given where you stand now, what drives you if we came a week out to hit the next milestone or the next thing? Well, last week I felt like I could have played better, so that driven me. The week before it driven me too and the week before that it driven me, so I got a lot of reasons and I'm just ready to go to work, ready to play better and ready to be better for this team. Wanting to play better is kind of the overall caveat. What's the challenge in trying to get better, let's say, from your end on the screen game when you guys try to execute screen passes? Yeah, I think that's just paying attention to the details to be able to make the screen work, being able to sell the screen and do the things that you need to do to be able to have open field whenever you catch it. So it's all tied in together. And we've had some good plays off the screens and hopefully we get an opportunity this week. Jeffersim has said how winning kind of cures everything and how it's a different vibe in the building after a win. For you, what you've seen, how much different is it after the win and how much do you have to be careful not to be like that fat alligator that's really vulnerable? Yeah, I mean, winning is definitely contagious. We all love to win. But I think we definitely know that we could have played better last Sunday and we're just hungry for more. And I'm ready to be better on all three phases. And I think that just the focus is just keep growing, keep on improving so those wins can keep on happening. Derek, what stands out to you the most about maybe the way this cold defensive run is playing Robert Stewart play the last time? Like he's not gonna be available this time, but just overall, they seem to have like a lot of slashed plays recently. What has kind of jumped out to you about that? Yeah, I just think these guys been playing together for a while. They have really good chemistry. I think they have the guys that run the scheme very well and they execute and they're around the ball. And you know, you got leaders over there that do things the right way. Guys are all locked in and they're all tied in together and they play very well. Last week, first two plays, they had you split out wide and Hampton said you've been lobbying Tim for a go round or a deep post? I was kind of lost out there. I ain't wound up wide in beginning of the game and I don't think ever. But I'm not, it's just fun. Just giving defenses a different look and then coming out with something different. What's your inner Randy Moss? Hopefully one day he might throw it up to me let me go up and get it. But we'll have to see. In December at the end of the season, is that something that you kind of like the cold weather or Alabama, Florida, that stuff? Did you kind of still never get used to it? I guess I'm just, I love you Simmer because I'm christening my favorite holiday. So I guess I'm just running to get to Christmas to the 25th. But I don't know, hopefully it keeps going. You know, it gets cold around these times. And you know, I just, you know, want to finish strong at the end of the year, no matter the weather conditions, no matter what's going on. My mind is just, my mind says just finishing strong. So. Andre was miked up on Sunday, maybe told you to run behind him on a certain point. Tell me he was miked up. I gotta get on him about that too. I'm glad you said that. I gotta say something to him about that. Did you remember that kind of conversation with him and how's he been as far as willing to block for you and maybe let you know when he deserves some credit for it? Yeah, he was talking about it and we actually ran a play and it happened, you know, the same way he was talking about. So he was trying to coach me up during the game and tell me, you know, what was going to be open. I just told him, I said, you was right on that one. You know, he always tried to give me tips throughout the game. So no credit goes to him, but I'm still gonna get on him about not letting me know he was miked up during the game. That's a pretty big crime for a guy not to tell everybody he's miked up, right? A big one, a really big one. So as soon as I go in there, I'm gonna get on to him about that. Did he make some kind of deal with the Mike people? If he did, that's another crime. Not letting nobody know. So you let people know when you're miked up? Oh yeah, I gotta say something. I gotta say something because I was miked up a couple of years ago and totally forgot. So I'm definitely gonna let them know. I kind of messed up one time last year. I didn't let Tony know, but it was all the fun and games. But you know, whenever you got the mic, you gotta let everybody know you hot. So nothing crazy to say. We got one more for you. I guess you started the foundation what four or five years ago now. I know this is my call, it's my cleats week. How's that kind of gone in your mind as far as being able to help others? How important is it for the two-all foundation? Yeah, mine is focusing on the youth, helping out the youth, being a resource for them, trying to brighten that day in any way possible, especially during the holiday season, going back to school and just get my hands in the community with my foundation in any way I can. So, you know, just trying to brighten somebody's day and be a blessing to somebody in any way possible. And the two-all foundation, that's what it's all about, is living the playing field for the youth and also helping out anybody in the community as well. Thanks, Derek. Thank you, Derek. Derek out there, maybe again, a couple more times to see if anyone bites, maybe cast the lure and think about maybe throwing a long two on them sometime? Yeah, I mean, he's big, he's strong, he's fast, you know what I mean, and gotta do things that are gonna be able to keep him on us. So, he's got a cool skill set and we just gotta keep figuring out how, you know, what different ways can we use that? When you open empty like that on the two plays, but then go kind of right back to a more standard offense, what's the thinking there? Like when you opened empty like that, a lot of us thought, oh, they're gonna do something different this whole drive here and kind of surprise us. Yeah, some of that, I mean, it's hard, obviously, like Will does a great job finding hop on that first play. It was base defense versus 11 personnel, so you're kind of limited in what you can do there. But he made a great play and then tried to put ourselves in another situation there to be able to go and stay on the ball and kind of trap that personnel grouping and got pressured and had to throw in a complete pass and now you're second and 10 and it's hard to kind of stay in rhythm when you're in that, because it just changes everything. So thought process changed with down and distance and then we just went with the next best play that we thought. You're training under still early in the week, but good to get trailing back at practice, I imagine, yesterday and maybe what's your message to him as he kind of finds his way back into it? Yeah, keep working. Keep working to pick up where he left off. He was doing some things for us in terms of being able to win downfield, being able to stretch the defense. Now, the big thing that we talked to him about is you're big and strong and fast. You need to play big and strong and fast. So being able to consistently do that and it's going to be a good opportunity for him to come up and start to continue to grow and continue to improve. What pass plays are put in and called about how much of the time does the first read on that play work and get the football versus how much, reverse having to survey and go to a second degree? Yeah, I think it all depends on who you're playing, what the coverage is, and things along those lines. So it's part about playing quarterback at this level is being able to not just lock on to one player and being able to progress if need be for whatever reason, whether it's a different coverage than we anticipated, whether a match-up didn't win, whether someone's getting doubled. So there's a variety of reasons as to why the progressions are necessary and it just, I guess, bi-play by opponent. Do you ever go through in the process of reviewing that sort of stuff and maybe change what the first read is? Would you practice or is it a sense? I mean, for the most part, the plays are typically read, you know, consistently. So the quarterbacks have an idea as to what the issues are in certain plays, where they want to go versus certain looks. And so, especially with plays that you run a lot of, you want them to be able to go ahead and be able to handle unscotted looks, something that may come up, you know, when you're consistent and how you read certain things, you're able to handle issues that may be, you know, you're not really expecting, whether, again, it's a different coverage or something happens and you're able to stay in phase with your feet in your eyes and you're able to stay on time as opposed to trying to chase a read. When you watch film against their defense, what about Zaire Franklin, makes it so special? He's a heat seeking missile. I mean, he runs and he hits, he's as physical as a linebacker in terms of his ability to explode and deliver on contact. He's very active. He plays fast. You see the instincts. He's playing at a very high level. And when you talk about a linebacker's ability to run and hit, I mean, it's as good as I've seen right now. When you look at this defense overall, what maybe growth or differences do you see in that unit from when you guys last played? Yeah, 90's not in there. Obviously, 53's not in there. So those are two big pieces for him. But again, you take a look, 44 and 45 are both playing at a high level. They're playing well. They're both physical linebackers. You know, Buckner's still inside, still disruptive. Obviously Quitty Pay will be back or we're expecting him to be to see him on Sunday. You know, he's got some juice on the edge. They're playing fast up front. They've got a disruptive, penetrating front. And they're good on the back end. Those linebackers are all over the field. And they've got guys that are there and making plays. Kenny Moore's a really, really good player. You know, he's really instinctive. He's a good blitzer. You know, he finds the football. And that's the thing I would say that you notice when watching them is they've been very opportunistic and they do a really good job of attacking the football. So in order for us to have success on Sunday, we got to do a good job of making sure first and foremost that we're protecting the ball. Where there anything, was there anything in particular that was happening in that second half to keep you guys from being able to find the end zone? Yeah, I mean, we got to do a, I mean, I would both worry two for 12 on third down, right? That's unacceptable. So we have to do a much better job there to be able to keep drives going and be able to capitalize on some of the momentum. I thought we were able to start some of the drives off with some good plays, you know, whether it was the ball to hop, whether it was the ball to Chris, where, you know, we were able to go ahead and get a chunk and then we just weren't able to kind of capitalize on that momentum. So we got to do a better job on third down in making sure that we're in a position to extend drives to be able to make sure that we're able to get to the different calls that we have in our call sheet. Derek moved up a couple of different charts on Sunday. Sure. How much does his consistency and durability impress you? He just told us the thing that drives him each week is to be better than what he did the last week. How much does that mentality help as well? It helps a lot. Obviously for a player that's had as much success as Derek has, you love that drive, that hunger to be able to come and attack each week, trying to improve in whatever area we need him to improve in. He's a machine in terms of how he takes care of his body, how he prepares in the off season to how he prepares in season in just the amount of detail and the amount of thought that goes into making sure that he's primed and ready to go for Sunday. So again, that's a testament to him, his work ethic and everything he puts in to be a great football player for us both in and outside the building. I guess Shane, or maybe players motivated by just maybe putting in the tape for the first colds game as far as run defense goes? Yeah, I mean, we went through it. We watched it yesterday when we got them in here. A lot of things need to be cleaned up. So I think they're excited for opportunity. It's gonna be a big challenge for us. They're playing really well up front right now. Backs doing a good job. They're all on the same page with offense. They're efficient. They're scoring a lot of points. So it's gonna be a big challenge for us to think our guys are excited for it. Shane, all the guys said things were simplified last weekend. I guess why maybe just that game have we seen more simplified play up front and how do they kind of continue that? Yeah, I think a lot of that is just making sure we're locked in on the little things, the details, not overwhelming them too much. Them not overwhelming themselves too much with different things, making sure we're locked in, getting back to being able to play with some speed. Play with some speed, not paralyze ourselves, pre-snap, over-analyzing, over-thinking things, get lined up and we got to go play. We got to react and hopefully we can make some plays out of it just based on the speed of the game. So I mean, I think the guys bought into the message that Vraib showed them and that's gonna be a big thing this week. We got to make sure we're all on our peas and queues. It's gonna take all 11 every play. How much did you... As much game like you did in the last game, obviously, they've struggled up on the anti-mintries too, but how do you evaluate that when you have like an ardent conversion? Yeah, it was good to see that. So, I mean, we'll see, he's out here working this week and we'll see where it goes this weekend, right? Come Sunday, but I was pleased with what those guys did. They took advantage of their opportunities. That was a big thing going into the week. Take advantage of our opportunities, no matter what it is, a chance to celebrate, don't miss the opportunity to celebrate. A chance to pick a teammate up, don't miss an opportunity to encourage and pick up a teammate. A chance to make a play when your play is there to be made and make it, right? So that's hopefully that can continue and these guys can keep buying into that. They discussed it all in the course of that. Hey, this was a third string left tackle and the other, left guard and the other guard was starting his second career game and what you see this week is different. So we got to raise the game to keep up the production. Yeah, we were aware, I mean, going into the game, kind of where they were last week in terms of O-line and then as the injuries unfolded, kind of where they had to go. And I mean, our guys know what this team is that we're facing. Like we've played them a lot over the years. There's a lot of similar faces, especially up front for them. It's always been a battle, physical game always. So our guys have an idea of what this is going to take and what we're going to have to do up front, especially in order us to find some success this week. How much did Murphy funding's return kind of help stabilize the back end and get everybody back in their normal position? Yeah, it was good to get them out there. Think Roger continues to do a lot of good things for us inside. So allows us some versatility there with him. And it was good to get Sean out there. I think he's a calming force a little bit out there, just because he's played a little bit of ball and he's more of a veteran presence out there for us. So hopefully that continues. And as we got to keep shuffling pieces, we'll shuffle them as needed based on where the season goes and the injuries and everything else. How do you evaluate like he is on? And other times there are decisions that you wonder, like when you're looking at the, how do you force him into those decisions? Yeah, I mean, I think he's really comfortable in the system. I think the familiarity coming from Philly to be there, it's a really good scheme. They do a lot of things. He's progression wise, he's good. He knows where to go with the ball. The RPO stuff, he's been really good at seeing all that. And the big thing that's showing up is just, and it's always been this way with him is the off schedule place, right? The ability to escape, the ability to duck, dodge, all that stuff right from dang dodge ball, right? It's the same premise, but he finds ways to be elusive in the pocket and get out. And that's when he tries to make those plays, right? He makes those plays and sometimes they're good plays, sometimes they're not so good, right? So we're gonna have to continue to challenge, hopefully be tight enough and where we can cover and rush and coordinate all that stuff together and we're gonna have to do a great job trying to keep them in the pocket and making sure we plaster like we did last week against Young when he got out on us a few times. All of this is a lot better in the red zone than it was the last time you played. What you just described, is that more or less the difference than before or what is the difference? Yeah, I mean, they're doing a good job running the ball. They got some size, some playmakers down there on the perimeter. I think the RPO stuff shows up just the same. They're really efficient. Like you don't see a lot of negative plays down there from them. They're efficient, they stay on schedule. When you're not able to get guys behind the sticks and they got the whole playbook out there arsenal, right? And then Menchu, he adds an element down there. Down there, you see him keep the ball. He runs, he's got some rushing TDs. So that's another added element we gotta be able to defend. When you're going against vertical guys like Alec Pierce, Pittman, what do you tell the DBs? Because we know how they consistently get called for interference, et cetera. What do you tell them going against jump ball guys? Yeah, we gotta be good. We gotta make sure we're finding the football, right? As we get down the field, hopefully we're connected and we're in phase. And at that point we can find the football. If we get beat and we're caught behind it, they're in such a catch-up mode at that point where it gets hard to try to locate the football. So if we can stay connected, understand what we're gonna see as the game kind of progresses, what they showed us the first game, then we gotta make sure as we're hip to hip, running, whatever, hand fighting as it goes, we gotta make sure we get our head around. Cause that's what the refs are looking for. If your head's not turned around and they're coming back for the ball, you're gonna get called every single time. If your head gets turned around and you're trying to find the football, the refs give you a little bit more leniency there. Shane, how much did their big plays hurt you the first time around? And how important is it to make them drive the full field? Yeah, I mean, shoot, they had five runs for 105. I think they had four passes for 114 and additional two DPIs for an additional 38, right? So you're talking nine, nine to 10 plays there that changed the game, right? And some of those were showing up on third down whether it was third and short, third and long. So we gotta make sure we do a good job keeping it in front of us. Sorry. We can handle it. Make, yeah, yeah, cut that one out. Make them drive the field, right? As always, make them earn it, make them earn it. Don't give them anything cheap. Don't give them any fast scores. There's a couple more going. Yeah, no, no. You got two meetings on set there, I guess. Yeah, slipped out. Talk about X place. No good.