Watch: Tee Martin's Wednesday Press Conference

Tee Martin's Wednesday Media Availability

Martin addressed the media earlier today, and he had plenty to say. You can watch the full video above. Below are a couple of key points that Martin made during the meeting.

On what gives him confidence that the passing game will be more consistent this season:

Well it’s the second year with the same play caller. That hasn’t happened in a long time around here, so I’m excited about that, just being a Vol. And then, to being on the staff, I’m just happy for that for our quarterbacks. When language carries over, when ideas carry over, there is a cohesion there, there is a chemistry there. When Jarrett (Guarantano) can look to the sideline and get a call from Jim (Chaney) and understand what the expectation of that play is. With expectation comes anticipation, comes an opportunity to eliminate problems, and when you do have problems an opportunity to minimize the destruction on the whole offense. You had to kind of feel and see early in the season, and once we kind of said, ‘Okay, this is what we are comfortable with doing, this is what we do very well,’ we kind of stuck to that in the second half of the season. Going into the spring, that was the idea. Now we’re in training camp with new faces, new bodies in there at different positions, but the one position that has been consistent in two places is the quarterback and the coordinator. So, I think just having a second year of being comfortable with the play calls, the expectation of the plays, the familiarity of the plays is going to help us overall from that position and it’s going to trickle down though my room. I know in my room we’re a lot more comfortable with language, with expectation, and why are we doing what we’re doing? Why are we calling this on 3rd-and-3? I know there’s a corner route, but are we really trying to throw that? So, long story short, familiarity, comfort level and understanding what we’re trying to do I think is the benefit in that.

On the chemistry between the quarterbacks and wide receivers early in camp…

It’s been about as good as you can expect. Obviously, these young men went their separate ways after spring and were in different cities. We slowly started to get them back, had limited opportunities, and I think that you couldn’t ask for a better chemistry with the situation. I think Jarrett (Guarantano) is very direct about what he likes and what he wants. How he wants routes to be ran. He has Ramel (Keyton) and Josh (Palmer) and Cedric Tillman, guys that he’s played with for a few years and they know him, he knows their body language. There are certain things that you pick up on as a quarterback: how a guy sinks his hips, how a guy gives you what we call indicators of when he’s coming out of a route, things of that nature. He’s feeling that out with the younger guys, but he anticipates a lot better with our veteran receivers because they’ve had more time together. That’s what we’re trying to bridge the gap between the reps that were lost with not having a spring and a very limited offseason and trying to put that all together and go and play a game here in a few weeks. So, it’s a great question and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re just trying to get them as many reps as they can to build that trust as you will between quarterback and wide receiver.”


Published
Matt Ray
MATT RAY

Matt Ray is the publisher of Sports Illustrated-FanNation's Volunteer Country, serving as a beat reporter covering football, recruiting, and occasionally other sports. Matt also is a lead analyst at Sports Illustrated All-American, Sports Illustrated lead authority in high school recruiting coverage. When not at work covering the Tennessee Volunteers or the recruiting trail, Matt enjoys spending time with his wife Destiny traveling the country.