TAMPA, Fla. – John Jancek and the rest of Tennessee’s coaching staff had more than two weeks to get ready for the season’s final game.
And that was before the Volunteers even set foot in the state of Florida.
Though the game plan for Friday’s Outback Bowl clash against Northwestern was finalized more than a week ago before the players left for Christmas break, Tennessee’s defensive coordinator may be losing a little sleep this week because of the unexpected that can come when the opponent’s team and coaching staff have so much time to prepare.
“You get it in while you’re there, and they go on that Christmas break,” Jancek said Monday after Tennessee’s practice at the University of Tampa. “As a coach you’re worried: Did they forget it? You come back and you hit all those things.
Tennessee head coach Butch Jones (right) discusses the Volunteer defense with defensive coordinator John Jancek. The Tennessee Volunteers hosted the Bowling Green Falcons at Nissan Stadium in Nashville September 5, 2015.“We put it in, we covered everything before we left from Knoxville and now we’re just touching some things here and there and going back and reviewing some things that maybe we think they would want to do. That’s the life of a defensive coach. We have to react to what they do. We have to be prepared to make adjustments.
“We have to be prepared at a lot of different levels. I can’t tell you how many times this year teams changed what they were doing against us. We break the film down, and we have all these tendencies. We’re like, ‘They’re going to do this, this this and this,’ and we’re going to do this. And they come out and run it maybe one or two times.
“It’s been a lot of fun, because our guys have been able to adjust. When you’ve got smart guys, that helps.”
The added time allows for trick plays, new formations and wrinkles a team may not have shown during the regular season. There are unknowns for which there’s no way to prepare even with nearly a month available.
The Vols’ simple defensive approach should help them counter what added schemes Northwestern may have.
“We don’t really switch up a lot week to week,” linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin said. “We’ve got all our rules in place. In blitzes we might change the paths or might tweak something with the coverage or things like that, but we’ve got our rules in place and we stick to that.”
It’s not like the Vols are preparing to play the most exotic of offenses, either.
Northwestern finished last in the Big Ten in total offense, and the Wildcats prefer to play to their strengths, which is a defense that’s one of the highest ranked in the nation and a running game that churned out the Big Ten’s No. 4 rushing offense, led by workhorse running back Justin Jackson.
The Wildcats, Jancek said, are “very patient” and “very committed” to that ground game and play conservatively on offense as another way to lean on their defense.
“They’ve got what they do, and they’re going to stick to it,” Reeves-Maybin said. “They don’t look like they get flustered at all. They are who they are, and they’re going to come out and play their game.”
Multiple Tennessee players and coaches this week have compared bowl games to season openers.
“You have so much time in preparation for a bowl they can change things, they can do different things,” Jancek said. “There’s a whole season that you pull plays from as a coach, as a defensive coach, and it kind of can drive you crazy. You’re going to have to adjust again on game day, and I’m really pleased with our guys’ ability to do that.
“We’re able to come to the sideline and say, ‘Here’s what they’re doing and here’s what we want to do.’ We make the adjustments, and I think that’s why you don’t see the consistent plays continuing to hurt us. You get hurt on a play here, get hurt on a route concept there – we’ve always been good at fixing those.
“I’m proud of our guys and of our coaching staff for seeing it, recognizing it and then us being able to correct it.”
Jancek cited the South Carolina game, when the Gamecocks broke out some new looks to catch the Vols off guard, as an example of when his unit had to adjust on the fly.
Tennessee is expecting the unexpected Friday, but the Vols believe they’ll be able to handle it.
“Bowl games, they always have a different flavor,” Reeves-Maybin said. “A lot of teams come out with some trick plays, or they come out with some things you haven’t seen before. We’ve got all our rules in place, and we’ll have to make the right checks and make the right adjustment, settle down when they hit some big plays on us and we’ll be fine.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.