Tennessee tight end Jacob Warren knows the Vols had better put the off week to good use. Sure, he and his teammates can enjoy a little bit of extra time off, but there is work to be done before the LSU game.
The bye week might come at a perfect time for Tennessee. The Vols are coming off of an incredibly emotional victory against Florida. The win carried so much historical significance that it can’t be viewed as just another game.
“It’s cool because we’ve got this bye week coming up. We don’t have an opponent on Saturday, so I think the next couple of days as we watch the film, I’ll kind of be like ‘We just did it,” Warren said about beating Florida. “Not that we won the national championship or we won the SEC Championship. I don’t want to necessarily equate it to that, but we did something that, plain and simple, hasn’t been done here in awhile.
“If you want to say that’s part of the history of this team and of this program, then I think I’m just super happy and excited to be a part of it.”
There are plenty of mistakes to be corrected from the Florida game. However, none are more significant than Tennessee’s overall lapse in the fourth quarter. The Vols went from leading the Gators by 17 points with less than eight minutes left in the game to having to pray that a Hail Mary wasn’t answered in order to win the game 38-33.
“A big learning thing for all of is just ‘It’s never over until it’s truly over,’” Warren said. “Whether you’re up four or five scores, it’s never time to relax and to think that you’ve got it in the bag.
“We all understand now that 17 points isn’t enough to feel good about.”
If the Vols find themselves in a similar situation – and they hope they don’t, they should be better prepared to think that things will turn out positive, which hasn’t been the case in recent years.
“We’ve been in this position so many times,” Warren said of close games that have gone awry. “You have to just expect and believe that and have faith that it’s not, that we’re going to hold out.”
Warren is aware that fans refer to Battered Vol Syndrome, which essentially means that no matter how good things seem, things will eventually go south for the Vols. Warren said it’s time for that to change, even among his teammates.
“It’s not the mentality of ‘Here we go again,’ Warren said. “It’s got to be the ‘Nah, let’s go. Let’s change. Let’s rewrite the narrative.’
“Let’s change the narrative of what happens to this program.”
That seems to be what the Vols are doing. We’ll see. The Vols play at LSU on Oct. 8.
