During the course of a football game, every player on the field has moments that explode the stadium in cheers and plays that they'll want back after a mistake.
For Tennessee, the key is to move on and focus on the next play no matter what the result is.
The Vols call this next play mentality 'snap and clear'. Linebacker Aaron Beasley says that it is necessary to think this way no matter what. If you get caught up in the last play, an error will be compounded or a big play will be instantly negated.
"Our coaches tell us all the time, snap and clear," said Beasley. "Move onto the next play. It doesn't matter if you just had the best play or the worst play ever, the next play is all that matters. You can have a great play and the next play you give up a bomb, that great play don't matter anymore because you gave up a bomb. Snap and clear, I say. That's always my mentality no matter good play or bad play."
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For head coach Josh Heupel, the ability to emotionally reset after a play is one of the keys to gaining his trust. He mentioned a next play mentality as one of the few areas he looks for to see if a player is ready to make an impact with the team.
This mindset is more than just on a play-to-play basis, though. Heupel wants his squad to take this approach to a more macro scale, as well.
Essentially, don't let one play, one practice or one game effect your mentality as you go forward.
"In this game, you have to go out and go take it every Saturday," said Heupel. "There's nothing given. You've got to be mature enough to reset and handle everything that comes at you. That's play-to-play, that's day-to-day, that's week-to-week."
One way the defense stays on top of this mindset is by holding each other accountable and picking their teammates up after errors.
The defensive unit gets on the same page by a simple gesture. They pump their chest to signal to the other defenders that the previous play is over and it's time to focus on what's next.
"Emotionally resetting, you know, just having competitive composure," said safety Doneiko Slaughter. "Just snap and clear if it's a bad play. Just snap and clear as a team. We have our standard of just checking on our brothers. Just pump your chest so you know we're resetting and refocusing if you lose control and have an emotional outburst."
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Even though he's one of the most looked to leaders on the team, Beasley also wants his teammates to have his back. While he helps the other members of the defense, he knows he isn't perfect, either.
"Just uplifting those guys," said Beasley. "I'm going to need it sometimes, too. I won't be perfect in that area as far as snap and clear and moving on to the next play so of course I'm going to lean on my guys to uplift me when I have a bad play. We're all working together at the end of the day."
This line of thinking doesn't just apply to the defense, though. Offensive players must also have a short memory and worry about what's next.
This is most prevalent at the quarterback position. For Joe Milton, the senior signal caller used to struggle with clearing his head and moving on from bad plays. Instead, he'd let one error snowball into the next.
However, offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Joey Halzle says Milton has matured in this aspect. Instead, Milton now takes what he learned from the previous rep and moves on to the next one.
"A lot of that is just training the mind to anger doesn't help you," said Halzle. "It's, alright cool, it's quote unquote failure on that last play, just file it away. Learn something from it and move on. That's been the biggest thing from him. 'I don't know why I did that?' Okay, cool, let's figure out why. That's why this play didn't work, whether my eyes were in the wrong spot, my fundamentals were wrong, my play fake, whatever it was. Okay cool, let's learn from that, and file it away and grow from it. That's been the thing that he's done."
For wide receiver Bru McCoy, a similar approach is taken. He takes the knowledge from the previous play while still moving on to what's next and ultimately forgetting the outcome of what just happened.
"I quite literally forget the last play," said McCoy. "Someone asked me right then, I wouldn't be able to tell them because it's the next play mentality. For me it's just like, you don't really reset because you gather information from the previous plays. Coverages, alignment. So basically, your next assignment, you use that information, but as far as the outcome of the play, you don't think about it."
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For sophomore wide receiver Squirrel White, he says he doesn't even have the chance to mope around about a past failure.
Instead, the offense moves so quickly, he is forced to focus on the next moment.
"We got as fast as we go, you can't really like think," said White. "You just got to keep going forward. You just flush that play out your head and keep going."
McCoy agreed with White and notes if you're too busy being upset about a result then you're not going to be looked at in the next rep, either.
"By the time you're starting to feel sorry for yourself or whatever, it's the next play," said McCoy. "If you're feeling sorry for yourself you're not going to get the ball."
While there are many different approaches to the snap and clear mentality, the result is still the same. Tennessee wants to make big plays happen on a consistent basis and instantly be prepared to focus on what's next.
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