From the outside looking in, it may appear that there isn’t much left to play for for Tennessee football. For center Cooper Mays, that’s not the case.
The now-veteran center thought back to his first year at Tennessee when the team finished 3-8. Even in that last game, he was playing his hardest. Now, with the Vols slated to finish 8-4, he expected the team to play hard.
“At the base level, you should have enough pride in yourself, even if you don’t care about what there is to play for,” Mays said on The Vol Report. “If there’s not a bowl game you’re wanting to go to, if you can’t go to that one anymore, if there’s circumstances that you fell short on… me personally, I take every rep very seriously in the game.
“I mean, you’re putting your signature on it, you know what I’m saying? Every single rep that you put on tape, the scouts are looking at that. Your coaches are looking at it. You sign your name on the bottom right of that picture and you say, ‘This is me, I approve of what’s on this film.’ So for me, I’ll be damned if I put something on film that ain’t up to my standard. So that’s my look at it.”
For some Vols, there are still personal accolades to play for. Jaylen Wright is still on pace to become a 1,000-yard rusher, something that hasn’t happened at Tennessee since 2015. He is just 62 yards away from reaching that feat.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel has also never lost three straight games while at Tennessee. He only lost back-to-back games for the third time.
Last year, the Vols bounced back from that South Carolina loss to beat the Commodores in terrible weather.
“We had multiple, multiple runs that hit for a bunch of yards,” Mays recalled. “You watch the film from last year, it’s littered with stuff like that, people busting 40-yard runs. … There’s a lot of big-time runs, and we have to do the same thing and be prepared to do the same thing.”
The track record says Tennessee will be ready for whatever Vanderbilt throws at it on Saturday. The Commodores have had a rough 2023 season, only picking up two wins on the year.
Tennessee will face off with Vanderbilt on senior night, in Neyland Stadium, a place that the Vols have gone 14-1 in their last 15 games.
“I think they’re I think they’re a good football team,” Mays said. “I think they’re talented and I think they’ve got guys that can play ball at a high level. They’ve had some key injuries and I don’t know how that’ll shake out if they’ll be playing this weekend or not. But you know they’ve got a disciplined team that flies around and plays hard.”
