There is no shortage of objectives Tennessee has been addressing this week with Saturday the lone open date of its 10-game Southeastern Conference football season.
Revisit the fundamentals. Become more physical at the point of attack. Limit missed tackles on defense, and break more tackles on offense. Protect the ball better. Actually, protect the ball much better.
These are issues third-year Volunteers coach Jeremy Pruitt has mentioned with recent regularity, but how do the players feel at a time like this? What have conversations been like among teammates in the locker room or away from practice settings altogether?
"I think after we came out 2-0 and now we're 2-3, we've got to take a step back and just kind of look at ourselves and really evaluate ourselves personally," senior tight end Jacob Warren said. "We've all talked together and met with each other and said, 'Look guys, it's time for each of us to look in the mirror, because you're only really as strong as your weakest link.' If one of us is not doing what we need to be doing, that's really going to hurt the team as a whole, so I think that's kind of our focus right now.
"If we don't prepare the right way, it's not going to work out, and that's just how it goes. I think that's been our attitude in this bye week and going into the rest of the year."
A disappointing stretch typically falls on a head coach or his quarterback, with Tennessee having made the rapid switch from Jarrett Guarantano to J.T. Shrout back to Guarantano during the 34-7 home loss to Kentucky on Oct. 17. It also results in the questioning of team leadership and whether players have the right makeup to bounce back.
"I think that our guys have done a really nice job from a leadership standpoint," Pruitt said. "It's been a very unusual year obviously for every program, right? Are we playing as clean as we want to play on either side of the ball? No, we're not. We've got to be better fundamentally and eliminate mental errors.
"As far as attitude and effort every day in practice, I feel like our guys are really going in a positive direction."
Judging by the frequency in which they've represented the team in Zoom news conferences this season, sixth-year senior center Brandon Kennedy and sophomore inside linebacker Henry To'o To'o appear to carry some significant clout on their respective sides of the ball. Senior receivers Brandon Johnson and Josh Palmer and senior defensive lineman Matthew Butler also serve as spokesmen, and Butler expounded on leadership responsibilities after last Saturday's 48-17 loss to visiting Alabama.
"It's not all about being in front of a lot of people and saying a lot of galvanizing things," Butler said. "Sometimes you've just got to know the guys and who you're standing next to. Sometimes you need to talk to people individually and know what galvanizes them and gets them going. There are some guys where you have to get in their face, and there are some guys you have to talk to privately.
"What you want is that mindset that collectively can make us take leaps and bounds when it comes to responding to this unfortunate set of circumstances."
This open week for the Vols has served as an opportunity for Pruitt to get back to some basics and for team leaders to speak but also for many voices to be expressed.
"We've been talking," sophomore linebacker Quavaris Crouch said. "I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that everything has been good, but we've been talking. We are all going to have our opinions, but the great leaders on our team and people who see things the right way are going to say, 'Listen man, we know that all this is going on, but we have to rally together and go finish the season strong.' That's what we are going to do. It's not the end of the world, and we are getting better and better."
Said senior safety Theo Jackson: "Right now we're just trying to keep everybody having a positive attitude, because that will help with getting people the reps that they need and the extra coaching for these next five weeks."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524. Follow him on Twitter @DavidSPaschall.