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9
Tennessee
The Volunteers are going to have to Tee it up without
Manning, but it's the defense, not the offense, that will
more likely give Tennesseans cause for
concern
| |
Jeremaine Copeland, Tennessee's leading returning receiver,
will be a key to young Martin's
fortunes.
(John
Biever)
| "I can't,"
Tee Martin says.
"I can't be Peyton." Martin, Tennessee's new
quarterback, says it so simply and sweetly that it's
apparent he hasn't stayed up nights wondering if he is the
next Manning. The funny thing is, Martin, a junior, chose
Tennessee over Auburn in 1996 to steer clear of
comparisons. One of his closest
friends back in his hometown of Mobile, Ala., Dameyune Craig,
played quarterback at Auburn. "I didn't want anyone to
say, 'He's just like
Dameyune,'" Martin
says.
They won't say he's just like
Manning, of course, although coach Phillip Fulmer sees
enough similarities that he says the only difference is
that Martin didn't grow up with money. "Leadership,
ability to communicate with
players," says Fulmer, rattling off Martin's Manning-like
strengths. "He has a lot of pride but not
ego."
When Manning announced in March 1997 that he would return
for his senior season, Martin happily slid back into the
role of heir apparent. "I knew what to do," he
says. "That year gave me a chance to sit back and
watch. Peyton was so far ahead of the
game on the college level. He dropped back and knew what was
going to happen.
He knew where to go. I worked on that a
whole lot." Asked what he does well,
Martin says, "I drop back well. I think that I think well. I
stay poised. I don't let the last play affect the next
play."
Martin played little last season (four games, 12 passes, 10
of them in the opener), which is curious given the number
of games Tennessee won easily. The ruptured bursa sac in
Manning's right knee that nearly knocked him out of the
Orange
Bowl gave Martin the invaluable experience
of working with the first team throughout the two weeks of
bowl practice. Still, Martin has taken so few game snaps
that in April, Fulmer set aside his spring-game rule that
quarterbacks may not be hit. "He handled a lot of big
hits," says Fulmer, who
with Tom Osborne's retirement, became the Division I-A coach
with the highest winning percentage (54-11, .831). "I
like how he bounced up and got back to the
huddle."
If anyone needs proof that Martin is no Manning, consider
this: The Volunteers will dust off the option series in
their playbook to take advantage of Martin's speed.
"We've got the line, the backs and the quarterback to
run it," says Martin, who spent
part of the summer watching videotapes of Donovan McNabb, the
stellar option quarterback at
Syracuse.
Four of Tennessee's five starting linemen return, as does
the best pair of running backs in the SEC, sophomore
tailback Jamal Lewis and senior
fullback Shawn Bryson. Fulmer brought the
6-foot,
220-pound Lewis along slowly last season, not starting him
until the fifth game. That looked overly cautious when, in
his first start, Lewis ran for 232 yards against Georgia.
He finished with 1,364 rushing yards, the second-highest
total in school history.
Odds are he will improve upon his seven rushing touchdowns
of a year
ago.
Defensively, the Vols will be hard-pressed to come remotely
close to their performance of last year, when opponents
averaged only 93.3 yards rushing per game. With its
bewildering option, Syracuse, whom Tennessee visits on
Sept. 5, may be the worst
opponent for a young defense to open with—except Florida,
whom the Vols play two weeks
later.
Tennessee has a good foundation on which to build in
linebackers Al Wilson and Raynoch Thompson. Wilson, a
senior, made 83 tackles at outside linebacker last season,
four short of the team lead, despite missing a game with a
bad ankle. He'll move inside
to replace Leonard Little, who made a switch from defensive
end to middle linebacker look easy last fall. Little and
end Jonathan Brown, both of whom were third-round NFL
draftees last spring, had 22 of Tennessee's 47 sacks.
Whether the Vols can
replicate that kind of pressure could be crucial to their
success.
Keep in mind that it's the defense that causes Fulmer to
say, "This team definitely has a long way to go."
He's not worried about the special teams, with kicker Jeff
Hall back after having made 16 of 22 field goals last
season, including 10 of his last
12. The offense has all the tools to be very good, if
measured by normal standards. The question that hangs in
the air (no, not that question; after five years of
humiliation, not even the loudest braggart in orange
overalls honestly believes Tennessee
will beat Florida this season) is whether a merely good
offense will be acceptable to fans as besotted with
Manning's memory as they were with the player himself.
Last season, Fulmer says, "We had a passer who passed
for 3,000 yards, a rusher who went over 1,000 yards and a
receiver [the departed Marcus Nash] who went over 1,000
yards. The fans expect you to win. That's not going to
change. They'll be patient to
a
point."
Right up until, say, the second quarter of the Florida
game.
—Ivan Maisel
Fast Facts
1997 record: 11-2 (7-1, 1st in SEC East)
Final ranking: No. 7 AP, No. 8 coaches' poll
| 1997 Averages | Offense | Defense |
| Scoring | 34.3 | 20.3 |
| Rushing Yards | 151.1 | 93.3 |
| Passing Yards | 331.8 | 241.5 |
| Total Yards | 482.8 | 334.8 |
|
Lineup
Coach: Phillip Fulmer
Seventh year at Tennessee (54-11-0); career Div. I-A record: 54-11-0
| OFFENSE |
| WR | Peerless Price | Sr. | 48 catches, 698 yds., 6 TDs |
| LT | Chad Clifton | Jr. | 6'6", 315; started 11 games |
| LG | Spencer Riley | Jr. | 17 starts in two seasons |
| C | Diron Robinson | Sr. | Slides over from backup RG |
| RG | Mercedes Hamilton | Sr. | Parade All-America at DE in '92 |
| RT | Cosey Coleman | So. | Started 5 games as a freshman |
| TE | Eric Diogu | Jr. | 1 career rec. |
| WR | Jeremaine Copeland | Sr. | 58 rec., 732 yds., 9 TDs |
| QB | Tee Martin | Jr. | 87 passing yds., 1 TD, 1 int. |
| RB | Jamal Lewis | So. | 1,364 rush yds., 5.9 avg., 7 TDs |
| FB | Shawn Bryson | Sr. | 146 rush yds., 307 yds. rec. |
| K | Jeff Hall | Sr. | 141 PATs: third in SEC history |
| DEFENSE |
| LE | Shaun Ellis | Jr. | Recovering from car crash |
| LT | Darwin Walker | Jr. | Bench-presses 520 lbs. |
| RT | Ron Green | Sr. | 6 tackles in SEC title game |
| RE | Corey Terry | Sr. | 82 career tackles |
| OLB | Eric Westmoreland | So. | Hurt for all but two games |
| MLB | Al Wilson | Sr. | Leading returning tackler |
| OLB | Raynoch Thompson | Jr. | 1 int., 3 forced fumbles |
| CB | Dwayne Goodrich | Jr. | 6 int. in two seasons |
| SS | Fred White | Jr. | 43 tackles |
| FS | Deon Grant | So. | Must replace Cory Gaines |
| CB | Steve Johnson | Sr. | four seasons, 1 int. |
| P | David Leaverton | So. | 8 punts, 36.4 avg. |
|
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are from 1997 season.
Pivotal Players
Jamal
Lewis may overshadow senior fullback
Shawn Bryson,
but Bryson is a big reason that Lewis casts any shadow at
all. The
6'1", 220-pound Bryson can run (4.2 yards per carry in
'97), catch (29 receptions for 307 yards last season) and
open holes for Lewis (ask any
SEC linebacker). Fullbacks get overshadowed at
All-America time but not at
NFL draft
time.... Junior cornerback
Dwayne Goodrich
has proved that he knows where to find the ball. In the
last two seasons he has recovered six fumbles, only two
short of the school career record. He also has intercepted
six passes in his career, two of which he returned for
touchdowns.... Wide receiver
Peerless
Price broke his ankle in the 1997 spring game yet recuperated
well enough to catch 48 passes in 12 games last season. Now
that he's back at full speed, Price should replace Marcus
Nash, a first-round draft pick of the Denver Broncos, as
the Vols' go-to
receiver.
Key Games
Schedule strength: 23rd of
112
Sept. 5 at Syracuse
Tee Martin debuts in the bedlam of the Carrier Dome. At
least he'll face an Orangemen defense that is young
too.
Sept. 19 vs. Florida
The Gators have beaten the Vols five straight times and
have psyched them out the way Alabama used to. (It took
nine years for Tennessee to turn that one
around.)
Oct. 3 at Auburn
Once one of the SEC's top rivalries, then a casualty of the
league's expansion to 12 teams, this matchup resumes after
a six-year regular-season
hiatus.
X Factor
More like the Tee factor. With so many weapons at his
disposal, Martin doesn't have to start out winning games,
just keep from losing them. How fast can he turn two years
of watching into
action?
Bottom Line
The offense will score points, but the
SEC East is no place for a young secondary. Tennessee's had
better grow up
quick.
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