The coaching change from Jeremy Pruitt to Josh Heupel didn’t stop Omari Thomas’ development with Tennessee football. Thomas played all 10 games in 2020 as a true freshman reserve.

Last year, he played in all 13 games, and he got better as the season went on. That resulted in him starting six of the final eight games of the regular season.

Now, with Matthew Butler gone, Thomas is set for an even larger role. When the Vols kick off the season Thursday against Ball State, the Memphis kid may be the leader up front.

“I expect us to come out and play with our hair on fire,” he said. “Play hard, play fast and just, like I said, focus on the small details, the alignment, the personnel, down and distance, different things like that and just play together as a unit.”

Thomas, who came out of Briarcrest Christian with running back Jabari Small, stands at 6-foot-4 and 320 pounds. Last year, he registered five tackles for a loss, a sack, a safety, four pass deflections and an incredible four forced fumbles.

However, it was how Thomas got better in the second half of the season that stood out. Through the first six games of the year, he had just five tackles. He had 13 in the final seven.

All but one of his pass breakups and quarterback hurries came in the second half of the season. The offseason seems to have continued that development.

“One thing we really focused on this year was paying attention to the small details,” he said.

Defensive tackles helping Tennessee football’s biggest weakness

Regardless of what stories come out at defensive tackle, everybody’s focus on the defense has been defending the pass after the issues last year. However, Thomas knows Tennessee’s defensive linemen can help out there.

Getting a pass rush is huge when it comes to affecting the passing game. Although that would seem to be more the role of the edge rushers, defensive tackles can help with that by getting a push.

Thomas said Garner and Tim Banks have stressed all offseason developing a pass rush. This is a huge emphasis of his now.

“We focused just on being able to rush the quarterback more, being able to affect the quarterback on third down, not having to bring pressures or anything like that,” he said. 

Obviously, with four pass deflections and multiple quarterback hurries last year, Thomas can play a huge role in defending the pass. He brings a lot of skill for a guy at his size.

Still, Thomas says there’s a big gap between where he is and where defensive line coach Rodney Garner expects him to be. If his development has stayed consistent, that’s actually scary.

“Coach Garner, no matter where you are, he’s always going to push you to exceed his limitations, exceed your own limitations,” he said. “There’s always going to be a next step.”

Embracing depth on Tennessee football’s defensive line

As we wrote earlier, establishing more depth is a huge focus of Josh Heupel’s this year. That’s an even bigger deal up front on defense.

In spite of the losses of Butler, Ja’Quain Blakely and Caleb Tremblay, Thomas says the Vols are deeper up front this year. He’s also embracing that, even if it means a lesser role for him.

“I trust the guys that are on the defensive line with me,” he said. “I know that if I’m tired, I know I can tell coach (Garner) I’m tired, or if he sees I’m tired, he can pull me out and put somebody else in and know that nothing’s going to fall off.”

Kurott Garland, LaTrell Bumphus, Elijah Simmons and Da’Jon Terry are some of the common examples of depth on the line. All of them are expected to help out.

Adding to that depth is the other four-star defensive tackle in Tennessee football’s 2020 recruiting class with Thomas, Dominic Bailey. After limited action in two years, Thomas has touted Bailey’s development.

“Since the first day of camp, he’s shown flashes, he’s shown attention to detail, shown that he wanted to be here, and it’s carried over to the end of camp and carried over into game prep practice,” he said. “He’s just shown that he’s ready to help us this year, and he’s going to help us this year.”

Bailey was listed as a backup defensive end on the first depth chart of the year, but that definitely suggests he could play a lot. Still, the anchor of Tennessee football up front appears to be Thomas. This is his year to break out.