Vols coach delivers powerful statement on how Tennessee's players should view the loss to Arkansas
No one in the Tennessee Vols' locker room is happy about the program's loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks last weekend. But while there's undoubtedly some anger over the loss, Tennessee's players have to be careful to not dwell on what happened in Fayetteville — they can't lose confidence because of one off Saturday. That's the […]
No one in the Tennessee Vols' locker room is happy about the program's loss to the Arkansas Razorbacks last weekend.
But while there's undoubtedly some anger over the loss, Tennessee's players have to be careful to not dwell on what happened in Fayetteville — they can't lose confidence because of one off Saturday.
That's the message the Vols running backs coach De'Rail Sims delivered to his players this week as Tennessee returned to the practice field ahead of an important game against the Florida Gators.
"I think in the mindset you kind of got to look at it as a situation in life," said Sims. "Sometimes you’re going to have off days. We talk about it in our room every day that we have off days, we don’t have bad days. Bad days [are] people that got stage four cancer that’s in that fight for their life. We got an off day, okay? So now you got an off day, what are you going to do the next day to make it better? The number one deal is let’s do a phenomenal job of learning from that situation that we just went through. So now understanding, flush it, let’s go on to the next page and let’s get ready to go attack this next week. So I think we've done a really good job from that standpoint.”
Sims is spot on.
Off days happen. They happen to nearly every program in college football at some point during the season. Tennessee has to learn from the loss to Arkansas, but they can't let it change who they are as a program. The Vols are a top 10 team for a reason. They don't need to reinvent the wheel after the loss to Arkansas.
Yes, there are areas that need improvement. Execution and game planning need to be better. But those are things that are supposed to improve throughout the season anyway. It may feel like there's a bit more urgency in those areas after a loss, but that's really not the case. Every week is about getting better, regardless of the previous weekend's outcome.
The Vols just need to regroup and refocus and not let one off day derail the entire season.
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