By Adam Bache
Tennessee’s defense leads the nation in sacks, has delivered multiple elite performances, and just made the signature stop of the season on fourth-and-1 against Auburn. Ask anyone in the locker room how they feel about it, though, and you get the same answer: not good enough yet.
Linebacker Jeremiah Telander didn’t hesitate when asked for his favorite Jim Knowles saying, and it’s become something of a team motto.
“All summer, when he says ‘Give us an inch,’ we say back ‘we will defend it.’ We’ve said that like 50 times now,” Telander said. “And then just going back to last game, that fourth-and-1 stop, it was awesome to see that come true. He called the big boys on the field, man. And he took a chance on us, and we made it happen for him.”
Nobody has embodied that identity more than defensive lineman Xavier Gilliam, a transfer who’s been unblockable so far this season. Telander, who lines up next to him every week, said the tape only tells half the story.
“You cannot put a one-on-one block against him. I’ve never seen anything like it. His quickness and his strength on top of that as well,” Telander said. “But honestly, whenever I first met him, I knew that he was going to be a dog, so it doesn’t really come as a surprise for me.”
Defensive line coach Rodney Garner sees the same traits up close every day in the meeting room.
“He has a really good initial quickness, good short-area quickness. He’s got natural leverage, and he’s a very powerful guy,” Garner said. “I think he plays violent; he’s violent with his hands. He doesn’t just step to the offensive line; he’s trying to go through them and create knockback.”
That dominance is spreading. Defensive lineman Mariyon Dye said watching Gilliam work has raised the bar for everyone around him.
“When I see my brother make a play, I think I got to go make a play now. When I see my brother dominate, I’m like we all got to be there with him and dominate with him,” Dye said.
Despite leading the country in sacks, Dye made clear the group isn’t interested in admiring its own numbers.
“I feel like we’re not pleased yet. We still got a lot more to do,” Dye said. “I feel like we really ain’t shown what we’re capable of yet.”
He was just as candid about where the group still needs to clean things up after the Auburn win.
“I missed a few tackles in the backfield. That was the main thing in that game. Just missing tackles,” Dye said.
Garner, who has overseen the entire defensive identity shift this season, framed the standard in terms bigger than any individual stat line.
“Even though we’re a bunch of individuals, we’re playing this as a team sport. This is a team game,” Garner said. “It starts with the T, and it ends with the T. Nobody in this program is bigger than the T.”
That pressure up front has made life considerably easier on the back end, according to cornerback Ty Redmond.
“It’s always easier when the D-line’s getting in the quarterback’s face,” Redmond said. “It’s way harder as a quarterback to throw a ball over a 270-pound guy.”
Redmond didn’t shy away from how good he thinks his own group has become, either.
“I feel like me and the other guys think we’re the best group in the nation,” Redmond said. “We go out there and practice and prepare like it too.”
Tennessee will take that identity on the road to Fayetteville this week, a place the program hasn’t won since 2001. Telander was part of the last Tennessee team to make that trip, and he hasn’t forgotten how it ended.
“We haven’t won in Fayetteville since 2001. Obviously, I was there two years ago in a one-possession game, and it didn’t go in our favor,” Telander said. “That’s obviously fuel for us, and Arkansas is a huge rival for the Tennessee program … We can’t wait to go down there and play some ball.”
Whatever happens Saturday, this defense’s mentality won’t change. Give them an inch, and they insist they’ll defend it, then spend the next week pointing out everywhere they fell short of doing exactly that.