Photo Gallery
Knitting Mill gets new owner and plansAntique mall on North Shore to close by end of August
Jalen Hurd carries in the game against Arkansas State.KNOXVILLE - Years ago, when Phillip Fulmer was still the Tennessee football coach, Trooper Taylor coached the Volunteers' receivers and recruited many of their top players. He later worked for Oklahoma State and Auburn. Saturday found him back in Neyland Stadium, but as an assistant on Arkansas State's staff.
To make matters more interesting, his son, Blaise Taylor, is a freshman kick returner for the Red Wolves.
But when ASU's 34-19 loss to the Vols ended his return to Big Orange Country, Taylor wasn't revisiting his past as much as hyping the Vols' future under second-year coach Butch Jones and his staff.
"Their attention to detail is unbelievable," he said. "We did everything we could to find tips [to what plays the Vols would run]. There were none. Those coaches do a phenomenal job."
Backing up Taylor's sweet words, Vols sophomore wideout Marquez North said after two touchdown grabs against ASU: "[Assistant coach Zach Azzanni] teaches us technique. It doesn't matter if you are first-string or fourth-string. He is a perfectionist, so if someone goes down he expects us to go in and not miss a beat."
Perfection is in the eye of the beholder, of course. A week ago today, his Vols having just humbled supposedly dangerous Utah State 38-7, Jones trotted out the old line about a football team making its biggest improvement between week one and week two. Whether that happened against the Red Wolves is debatable. This game not only was mathematically closer, but the talent gap appeared far less pronounced. Arkansas State looked more athletic, more physical and more determined than the Aggies.
Yet with the exception of an early touchdown by the Red Wolves, this outcome seemed every bit as certain as Sunday's win once the Vols took the lead with three minutes left in the opening quarter.
"I thought our players grew up a little bit today," Jones said.
Of course, they need to grow up a lot from this point forward. No. 4 Oklahoma welcomes the Vols to Norman on Saturday. After an open date on Sept. 20, UT plays at Georgia and then hosts Florida.
As former coach Derek Dooley liked to say, the Big Orange is about to experience big-boy football for the first time this season.
That doesn't mean Team 118 hasn't improved dramatically from year one to year two, however. Committing zero turnovers in the opener, UT lost only one -- a shoestring interception -- against ASU.
As for penalties, the Red Wolves were flagged nine times for 75 yards while the Vols were penalized twice for 14 yards. Talk about attention to detail.
That doesn't mean all is perfect, that an SEC East title is just around the corner, that OU's Sooners should shudder at the thought of facing UT.
It does mean that Jones and his staff are continuing to improve the Vols at a steady, sturdy pace. It means that 14 games into his UT tenure, a road loss at Florida last September remains Jones's only UT defeat to a team that finished with a losing record or a mid-major foe. It also means that, barring a crucial injury, the Vols should have a wonderful chance to go bowling. They should finish 3-1 in their nonconference games, have every reason to expect wins over Kentucky and Vanderbilt in the SEC and have a chance at South Carolina and at home against Missouri.
That's not to say a 6-6 record is certain, but it's possible.
"They're pretty good," Arkansas State coach Blake Anderson said. "We weren't moving them a whole lot."
Added quarterback Red Wolves QB Fredi Knighten: "Give them credit. The played hard, they played sound. They're pretty good on defense."
Almost no one said that about the Vols a year ago. And few may say it from this point forward.
But Jones didn't sound like a man expecting to hear few compliments in the regular season's final 10 games.
"These are going to be the days of a very, very young football team, but we are learning how to win," he said. "[Good] teams find ways to win football games when they don't play their best football. So I'm very proud of them that way, but make no mistake about it, we have a long ways to go."
That long journey continues Saturday at one of college football's four or five most storied programs.
"I am just looking forward," freshman running back Jalen Hurd said, "to going to Oklahoma."
Whatever the result against the Sooners, you get the feeling the whole Big Orange Nation is similarly excited. Amazing what a perfectionist coaching staff obsessed with details and technique can do for the confidence of a once struggling program.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.