KNOXVILLE — University of Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer met with reporters this morning for his weekly media day.

UT plays at 15th-ranked Auburn on Saturday.

The Volunteers (1-2, 0-1 Southeastern Conference) and Tigers (3-1, 1-1) hope to avoid a second consecutive league loss before the end of September.

Here is the transcript from Fulmer’s 660-word, four-minute opening statement this morning:

“As a head football coach, it’s really important to deal with what is real and evaluate who we are and what we need to do better. And what is absolutely real is that we have not played as consistently as anyone would like — starting with me, the assistant coaches and most of all, the players. They’re the ones that have the most invested in this, as far as their efforts and time. They certainly share in the disappointment when we don’t play well.

“I told our team on Sunday when we got back together that the sun came up on Sunday, no matter what anybody else out there might have thought. Often times, life is full of adversities, and it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you handle what happens to you. I think this football team is a football team that will fight. We haven’t had an effort problem. We haven’t had an attitude. Contrary to what some people might have said on television, we haven’t had a leadership problem at all. We have a consistency of execution problem on offense from time to time, and we’ve been here before. We know how to respond to that and coach.

“We’ve won 148 football games in my time here at Tennessee, and lost a little bit less than that — a lot less than that, actually — and we didn’t all of a sudden get stupid as coaches. We know what we’re doing, and we’re going to go to the practice field and correct and work and put our football team on the field with the best advantage we can possibly have.

“I do believe in this football team. I’m very committed to this football team, as to how they’ve gone about their business in preparing. But the simple fact of the matter is that we’ve got to play better in our ball games.

“I have never been an excuse-maker. I don’t expect our football team to be excuse makers, but to be responsible for where they can help themselves. The only place you can do that is not in the meeting room, where it’s nice and cool and everything. It’s not while they’re in the class, and not even while they’re having their downtime and hopefully talking as a football team. But it’s on the practice field. That’s where it’s got to happen. That’s the way we’re approaching this particular football game.

“When you look at our execution and what we’re doing, we’ve certainly evaluated a lot. We don’t have a scheme problem, and like I said earlier, certainly not an effort problem. It’s just simply about executing.

“When I said on Saturday after the game that that’s my job and my responsibility, that’s exactly what I meant. And I expect our football team to respond accordingly, as we go through this week of preparation for Auburn. I do expect our team — and I don’t think you’ve seen any sad eyes here today; I hope you haven’t — to have a great demeanor about how they go about practice. I expect to see the same kind of effort in our preparation, and great fundamentals on the practice field, and improvement, so we can play better in the football games. And that’s as simple as it is.

“Auburn’s a very fine football team, no question about it. They just took the defending national champions (LSU) to the wire. They’re very good on defense; one of the best statistical teams in the league and in the country. They have a very solid kicking game on both sides, and an outstanding returner again that we’ll be facing. And offensively, they were much improved in their last ball game against a team that was better than they had played in the first couple of ball games.

“I’m anxious to see how we respond. If it’s been like anything I expect them to, I think our team will do very well.”

Read www.timesfreepress.com throughout the day, and Wednesday’s print edition for more information