University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley speaks to the press during an event.KNOXVILLE — Nightmares, scary sights, hard weapons and bludgeonings.
Those are the terms Derek Dooley used to describe what his University of Tennessee defense will face this coming Saturday, though the words hardly seem appropriate for a Big East Conference team that went 4-8 last season.
While part of that may be typical coachspeak, Dooley genuinely is concerned how the Volunteers will handle Cincinnati’s spread offense when the Bearcats visit Neyland Stadium.
“If we have mental errors Saturday,” the second-year coach warned at his weekly news conference Monday, “it’s going to be a bludgeoning. If we can’t tackle in space aggressively with a lot of orange shirts on the ball, it’s going to be a track meet.”
Cincinnati led the Big East in scoring and yards per game last season and scored 72 points in their season-opening win over an Austin Peay team that had just eight seniors and went 2-9 last season. All-conference dual-threat quarterback Zach Collaros and leading returning rusher Isaiah Pead are back this season.