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KNOXVILLE — Jeremy Pruitt kicked off Week 13 of the 2019 season previewing the Vols’ next opponent, the Missouri Tigers.
“Our guys are excited to get back into game week,” Pruitt said following Tennessee’s open date in Week 12. “They should be fresh, I know I definitely am, had a good weekend.
“When you look at Missouri, they’re a team that is 5-1 at home. They lost this past weekend; the game was really close against Florida and a couple of things didn’t go their way down the stretch. They’re a team that’s really kind of dominated this series in the past, so it’ll be a good opportunity for our guys to go on the road and play a good football team that’s very well-coached.”
The second-year Tennessee head coach continued by discussing the Tigers’ offense, defense and special teams.
“When you look at them especially on the defensive side of the ball, they haven’t given up hardly any points, they’re very good against the pass and creating negative plays,” Pruitt said. “They have play-makers and have always had a history of having really good pass rushers.
“Offensively, like a lot of teams in this league, the have had to bounce around a couple of quarterbacks due to injury. I’m very familiar with Kelly Bryant, I coached against him when he was at Clemson. The guy is extremely athletic and can extend plays. He has a big arm. When you look at Missouri offensively, they’re really big and strong and physical up front. To me they have two really unique tight ends that can present a lot of issues. They have multiple guys they play at the running back position and they all are plenty capable, and they have plenty of play-makers on the outside.
“You look in the kicking game, they do a really nice job in punt returns. They present you a lot of different problems on the punt team and with their kickoff cover team their kicker kicks it into the stadium every time, so there are lots of issues there. We have a huge challenge for us and we have to continue to improve as a football team. I’ve said this a bunch of times, we have yet to play our best game, we have yet to, in my opinion, play a complete game. So, we have lots of things as a staff, as individual players, as a team, we have a lot to prove and this is a great opportunity to do it.”