KNOXVILLE — Derrick Ansley enters his second season as defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach under Jeremy Pruitt at Tennessee.
During the second week of fall training camp, Ansley discussed the experience of Tennessee’s secondary ahead of the 2020 season.
“Nowadays, the secondary is a lot like basketball,” Ansley said on a Zoom call with reporters. “You want to be able to match up and put different people in different spots to show off their strengths and put people in a position to make plays. With that being said, we do have a lot of options – a lot of guys that can do different things.
“We had a couple of guys who got nicks and bruises early on, but for the most part we got a lot of guys back from last year outside of Nigel (Warrior). We should be deeper in the back end – a lot of game experience and playing time back there. We need those guys to be the strength of the defense and lean on those guys a lot more this year.”
Tennessee will kick off the 2020 campaign Sept. 26 at South Carolina.