Dooley Sticks His Neck Out When It Comes To Tackling In Practice
September 28th, 2010 03:01 PM║ Posted By: John Pennington ║ Permalink
║ Schools: Tennessee
Tennessee is perilously thin at a number of positions. At left tackle, for example, there is no true backup heading into Saturday’s game at LSU. Due to his thin roster and a month’s worth of attrition so far, Derek Dooley gave his squad an extra day off yesterday. But he won’t be changing how the Vols practice when they return.
“It’s going to be hard for me to compromise being physical and tackling (in practice), and if that means guys are going to get hurt, I’m going to have to live with it,” Dooley said.
“What I can’t live with is watching a team that doesn’t tackle well. So I’d rather have the worst players in college football who are going to go tackle than have good players that won’t tackle.
“I’m sorry — we’re going to be physical in practice, and we’re going to tackle. I may be kicking myself in three weeks, but, man, I don’t know what’s worse. It’s hard to look at a team that doesn’t tackle very well, and we didn’t do it (against UAB last Saturday).”
The Volunteers surrendered 544 yards of offense to the Blazers before finally winning 32-29 in double-overtime.
Tennessee’s October stretch is as follows: at LSU, at Georgia, Alabama and at South Carolina.
Not good.
[...] change. They have left due to the practice schedule. They left because of the program. Dooley has stuck out his neck, taking risks in practice, that same may argue are pushing the envelope. “It was hot today,” [...]