Press conference takeaways: Battered Vols look to end season on high note

Tennessee enters its regular season finale against Vanderbilt battered.

The No. 25 Vols have suffered back-to-back losses by 28 or more points. Their most recent defeat was a 38-10 drubbing at the hands of top-ranked Georgia last Saturday, but even as injuries pile up and conference championship goals are off the table, Tennessee (7-3, 3-4 SEC) hopes to end on a high note before its bowl game.

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All that's left is a Commodores team that has lost nine-straight games since starting the season 2-0 and is winless in league play.

For the Vols' senior class, which has experienced both the lows of the Jeremy Pruitt era and an NCAA investigation as well as the highs of Tennessee's 11-win and Orange Bowl campaign a year ago, beating Vanderbilt (2-9, 0-7) in their final game inside Neyland Stadium is among the focus this week.

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel and seniors wide receiver Ramel Keyton and offensive lineman Ollie Lane talked about that and more on Monday.

Here are the takeaways.

Jaylen Wright busted a 75-yard touchdown run on the first play against Georgia and finished the game with 90 total yards on nine carries.

It marked the second-straight week that Tennessee's vaunted run game, which it has relied on much of the season, had virtually no impact outside of Wright's early score.

The struggles in the previous game against Missouri had a lot to do with procedural, pre-snap penalties that forced the Vols away from running the ball, but Georgia's three-down front posed problems that Tennessee's staple of backs had no answer for last Saturday.

WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel wraps up Georgia loss, previews Vanderbilt

"Three-down fronts can vary, too in the fundamentals, technique, how they play," Heupel said. "Sometimes, the match ups are different based on the type of techniques that they're playing. Schematically, sometimes the schemes can vary because of the spacing and how you create grass. You've got to be able to adjust to what you're seeing and what you're preparing for on tape."

Tennessee has the opportunity to reestablish its self in the game against Vanderbilt.

The Commodores are currently allowing more than 176 rushing yards per game. They've given up 130 or more yards in all seven games against conference opponents and 215-plus yards in three games.

It could also offer up a chance to Wright to continue a record season. He currently sits at 938 yards, just 62 yards shy of the 1,000-yard mark.

"For (Wright), just his growth as a player, the work that he's put into it to be in a position to obtain that, I think is important to him," Heupel said. "He probably wouldn't say that if he was up here, but I certainly would say it for him. Proud of a young guy that when we got here, was a fast kid that just tried to run around everybody.

"Now, he has a great patience, great vision and still has the home run speed to take it the distance."

Tennessee displayed balance offensively in the middle part of the season.

It showed in the first half of the Vols' loss at Alabama and was key in its road win at Kentucky, with a number of late runs to preserve a 33-27 victory.

The Vols have had very little balance as of late, though.

WATCH ON VOLREPORT: Tennessee players recap Georgia, preview senior day vs. Vanderbilt

Tennessee couldn't manufacture much offense in each of its last two losses because it couldn't compliment its passing game with the run and vice versa.

"At the end of the day, execution," Heupel said. "We had a tipped ball from a front-line defender on a critical play. We're not accurate with the football or don't come down with a catch in one of the man-to-man situations. All of those things parlay itself into not being as efficient and effective as you need to be during the course of that game."

Keyton was in one of those situations in the first half when Tennessee was trying to get itself back into the game. He had two hands on the ball in tight coverage but was unable to come down with the ball.

Another instance in the second half on a pass to the end zone from quarterback Joe Milton III to freshman Kaleb Webb that was incomplete despite hitting his hands.

"Just minor details that we should fix," Keyton said. "We didn't execute as we should have. You can't dwell on the past. You've got to prepare for the future, but if you execute in those situations, it would have been different, but we didn't."

Tennessee was down several players in the secondary against Georgia.

Defensive backs Wesley Walker and Tamarion McDonald both missed the game after sustaining injuries against Missouri.

Jourdan Thomas, who played the majority of his 74 snaps in the Missouri game at the STAR position, on played two snaps vs. Georgia before leaving the game with an injury.

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Heupel updated the status of all three players for the Vanderbilt game.

"We were hoping that (McDonald) would be ready to go (vs. Georgia) as we went through warmups," Heupel said. "Just wasn't in position to play. Hope to have those guys ready to go in this one. Wesley is probably more questionable than the other guys."

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