KNOXVILLE — Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes took part in a Zoom media call Monday to discuss the Vols’ program ahead of the 2020-21 season.
The Vols are scheduled to tipoff the season Nov. 11 at Wisconsin.
Below is a transcript of Barnes provided by the University of Tennessee.
On the developments of other conferences opting not to play fall sports this year and if there has been any new communication between Barnes and the SEC:
“To be quite honest, and this is my opinion, we’ve got to get football going first. Obviously as a conference we’ve been talking about certain things—not anything drastic to be quite honest with you. I think it’s so important these next couple of weeks that we see how it goes with students being back on campus. We’ve got to get football up and going. That’s the first and foremost thing. We’ll come up with plans. There’s no doubt. I’ve got a call later this afternoon to find out some of those type plans. I think Danny Gavitt came out and said some time in the middle of September they might have something. Again, I don’t know why we say September. Our first game isn’t until November 10. I don’t know why we don’t wait as long as we possibly can. I just believe that maybe being an optimist that we’re going to go on time. What might happen is some of the places we have some of these tournaments, like New York or Charleston, there has been dialogue of moving those to Orlando. There are a lot of teams that are in those that are going to lose some games because the other team is not going to start up until January. I think if football goes well that some of these schools will reconsider. Understand that when the Big 10 made their announcement, we got a call the very next day from Wisconsin saying they are planning on playing. We’ll wait and see.”
On the team’s progress over the summer and if Barnes feels they are behind schedule:
“The only thing we’re behind schedule is being behind with our younger players. They didn’t get a full summer of what it really is like. They didn’t get a taste of that until the last couple of weeks they were here in July. I’ve used the analogy that all summer felt like going to a driving range or putting green and never getting to play golf. That’s kind of what the summer was. They weren’t allowed to play. They weren’t allowed to have competition of one-on-one or two-on-two, three-on-three, four-on-four or five-on-five. When we got back, last Friday I think, was the first time they competed since they were back from Nashville. With that said, Grant, I think we got a lot done. We really took it back to the bare basics in terms of fundamentals and things we wanted done. We always spend the offseason trying to work on individual weaknesses. For our older guys, if you ask me right now if they are behind, I’d say they’re not in terms of understanding the grind and commitment that goes into what you’ve got to get done every single day. The younger guys are still coming along with it. I’ve seen good, talented players, but this is all new to them.”