Tennessee football is marching on through spring practice as it prepares for the 2026 season. After practice on Wednesday morning, Vols linebacker coach William Inge met with the media to give his thoughts on where his room is at.
He was asked about Arion Carter battling back from injury, the depth of his room, working with Jim Knowles and a new defensive staff and more.
Here’s what he said.
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On Arion Carter missing spring and if the young guys in the room are taking advantage
“Well, the one thing about Arion (Carter) is he does a great job with his level of preparation. So, you may not see him, quote-unquote, there, but he is there. Whether he’s there on the sidelines or he’s working with me individually prior to practice in the mornings or later in the evenings, he’s definitely getting what we call your intensity through repetition. The one great thing about Arion being a veteran player is repetitions may not be some of the things that he has to have all the time because he’s got a lot of what you call ‘sweat equity’ already built up from him playing as much as he has in the program. So, he’s been doing exactly what we want him to do thus far as we begin or as we continue to progress in the spring.
“The young guys have really grasped very well because I think that they know he is one of the alpha dogs in the group and he sets the example for the group. They all want to follow his lead and be just like him, so they’re following suit to be just like him.”
On Amare Campbell’s camp and his familiarity with the scheme
“One of the great things about Amare Campbell is he is a veteran, so he’s played a lot of football. He’s got a lot of ‘sweat equity’ up under his belt. The thing that he does bring in, for sure, is he does have some scheme familiarity. So, he was kind of one step in front of a lot of the other guys, more from a learning standpoint. But to see him move, see him continue to grow and develop, it’s been great to have him here. I think the thing we’ve been challenging him with is now, as one of the main leaders of the team, it’s going to be your responsibility to make sure from a leadership and action standpoint – that’s going to be you all the time, every time.”
On the tightness of the linebacker room and if that changes with so much internal competition
“One of our main philosophies, or I guess our vision in the room, would be to create a culture that fosters to and embodies the academic, athletic, and personal excellence. So, it’s my responsibility as a coach to continue to mentor and lead them and push them to be better every day. And the one thing I think that we’ve had the opportunity to do is really get some good players in the meeting room. And when you have some good players, you can see some intensity through repetition of guys doing exactly what they’re supposed to do on a continual basis. So from our perspective, we’re just really trying to be the best at what we do when it comes to us doing our job.”
On how good of a problem it is to have so many options to figure out who is going to play
“The one thing we’re always trying to do is we’re trying to find what we call ‘healthy solutions’. So, we have to, as a staff and obviously myself as the leader of the group, make sure we find the best tight-knit unit. Who can do what from a practice standpoint, but also what combinations of guys, who can play well together, how do they play together and who can play what respective positions? So yes, it’s a very good problem, but that’s our challenge in coaching and for everyone in the room. Our responsibility is to get Tennessee football to where we can be in position to play for and win a championship and I’m just one of the pawns doing our job.”
On marrying teaching points from William Inge and Rodney Garner with new staff and new scheme
“Probably one of the best things about football is, it’s going to be the same. From coach (Rodney) Gardner’s standpoint of defensive line attacking an A or B gap or C gap, that’s going to be the same no matter what your call was. From the linebacker covering a number two or number three (receiver) or attacking an open gap, that’s going to be able to be the same. So, from some of those perspective, as leaders, as mentors, as coaches, we still do exactly the same thing that we’ve been doing. Now, when you blend all of the systems together, and that’s where we as leaders come into play because I think everyone, to a man, you want to make sure that it’s not going to be your group that’s going to cost your unit, cost your team, cost your organization. So, that’s our motivation when our boots hit the ground every day. We’re like a doberman pinscher in the junkyard. As soon as we hear a sound, we’re ready to go get something and that’s how our players are reacting to some of those same scenarios as well.”
On being retained by defensive coordinator Jim Knowles
“Well, it’s always very, very humbling, but we all know what we signed up for. And at the end of the day, you have to make sure that your position, your recruiting, your mentoring for the people that you’re around every day, that they do what they’re supposed to do to help your team accomplish this mission. And our mission, obviously, in this particular sport is making sure that you can be able to win. So it’s definitely very humbling to know you can stay on and continue to keep moving our program forward.”
On freshmen Brayden Rouse and TJ White
“They’ve been very, very, very good. Especially TJ, let’s say from a physical standpoint, to see how his body has evolved has been awesome. Like, we know for him, you have to say whoa instead of sick ’em, because when he comes to hit somebody, he’s coming to hit. Rouse is exactly what we expected as well from a speed and quickness scenario, him being able to play in space. He has been great. I think in our room, he set the fastest mile an hour for all the practices except for yesterday. He’s been awesome, as well.
“So seeing those guys continue to grow and develop and come in, get their studying in, and see how the rest of the group is growing is exactly what we want as a group. Cause just for us overall, we have a philosophy and it goes ‘We know who it ain’t gonna be.’ So we wanna be the guys who are gonna make the plays, who are gonna get the things done, who is gonna drive the defense and propel us to being a championship caliber defense and one of the top defenses in the country. And it’s gonna be on all of us in our room.”
On the next step in the development of Jadon Perlotte
“Just him continuing to learn. As you get into, let’s say year one, it’s always gonna be knowledge and understanding, you learning everything. Well, now you go into year two, now this is truly gonna be about performance enhancement and understanding how to take care of your body and take care of your team. So that’s what it’s gonna be for him. As we refine some of his skills and some of his abilities, now being able to go make some of the plays that he wasn’t in position to be able to make a year ago. And eliminating some of the errors that he had, that he created a year ago, and being able to be in position to be able to help our defense be even better this year.”
On keeping everyone happy in a deep room
“Well, I think the biggest thing that is a recipe that we utilize is love. We let them know how much we appreciate them, how much we care for them. Every young man in the room is not just a player to myself. He’s like my son, he’s like my child and I know I’m his mentor or his father figure, and some of them that really truly is the case. So I think that they’ve seen how we roll, how we operate, but they’ve been able to buy into what we’re doing. And when they all weigh in, they all see that if you do what you’re supposed to do, you’re all gonna have a chance to play, and then everyone eats.”
On the off-season Jeremiah Telander has had
“We’ve been very pleased with T’s spring thus far. And it’s kinda what we thought, what we expected, cause for him, the biggest thing I wanted him to be able to do was to make sure from a leadership standpoint, you can be the guy on our football team. When you look at a few guys, and we have them in our room with him, Arion Carter and Amare Campbell, there’s probably very few other guys on our team and maybe any other team that has as much playing experience.
“So we’ve really challenged Telander to be great when it comes to being able to lead our football team and hold guys accountable to the line and to the standard that we want here in this organization.”
On working with Jim Knowles and the new staff
“Well, the one thing, as you probably know about Coach Knowles, he’s probably one of the sharpest minds and one of the brightest minds in coaching that we’ve experienced and we’ve been around. But the thing that he knows is he knows exactly what it’s supposed to look like. And for us as coaches, that’s exactly who you want to be able to learn from. And then when you get to Coach DJ, well, there’s some familiarity that he has with Coach Knowles, having been with him at a number of stops and coached for a number of years. The one thing that he’s great on is he’s great at being able to love the players and hold them to the line.
“When I look at Coach Poindexter, we go back probably 16 years maybe, and for us, it’s like looking in the mirror, like literally looking at myself and how we approach our position groups. So we know that there is a very healthy blend of the individuals that we have in the meeting rooms and a great level of trust in how we’re all gonna develop our rooms and push each other to be able to be great every day.”
