Knoxville: Vols are stronger at tackle

KNOXVILLE — To hear Donald Langley say it, Phillip Fulmer is fluent in new wave English.

The University of Tennessee football coach is ready for Langley, a redshirt freshman defensive tackle, to hunt in opponents’ backfields.

“Coach Fulmer tells me all the time, ‘I’m sorry, Dog, but I’m impatient,’” the 6-foot-2, 290-pound Langley said while sweating through a Wednesday workout. “He says, ‘I don’t want you to be patient, either. I don’t want you to wait until your senior year to be the starter. I want you to play now.’

“That’s the kind of thing you take to heart.”

While UT doesn’t necessarily need big 2008 seasons from Langley, junior Chase Nelson and sophomore Victor Thomas, they are crucial pieces to the team’s future, and they know it.

“I didn’t come here to not play,” Nelson said during the same workout session. “Everybody on the team wants to play, and when you have the opportunity, you have to work hard and get it.”

Nelson offered a sarcastic grin when asked how he responds to Fulmer’s occasional barbs, such as “Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane.”

“Oh, I definitely consider that motivation,” Nelson said. “But at the same time, if he had given up on a player, I don’t think he’d try to get in his head like that. I consider that a good thing. I like Coach Fulmer. I’ve liked him ever since I met him. He’s one of the biggest reasons I came here.”

Talented big men have also come to Tennessee because of coach Dan Brooks, who has seven former defensive tackles listed on current NFL rosters. Some of his protégés, such as the Tennessee Titans’ Albert Haynesworth and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ John Henderson, are consistently referenced as some of the league’s best.

Langley, one of the nation’s top-rated high school tackles two years ago, said Brooks’ track record “makes you want to listen and do whatever he says.”

“You just feel like it’s your time to step up,” Langley said. “This is why you’re here. This is why you were recruited, to help the team and do the best you can to be the best player you can. This year helped me realize what Coach Brooks and Coach (Johnny) Long say all the time, that it’s not about how many tackles you make. It’s about how hard you work in the offseason.

“The harder you work, the better you get. And the better you get, the more you can help contribute to the team.”

Long, the strength and conditioning coach, said Langley has become one of the team’s most improved lifters.

“It’s exciting to see young guy make a push,” Long said. “Donald still has to play. Obviously, lifting weights and playing football are two different things, but I’m hoping he can take what he’s done in the offseason and put it out there on the football field.”

Fulmer said Friday that UT’s main defensive tackle trio — junior Dan Williams, senior Walter Fisher and senior Demonte Bolden of Tyner Academy — had the potential to become team leaders. Langley said they’re already there.

“Walter’s basically my big brother,” Langley said. “When we all hear that our D-line is the weakest, it just pushes us harder in the weight room. It helps you with that last rep, and it makes you run 12 yards instead of 10 yards. Instead of doing 10 reps, you do 11 reps.”

After redshirting in 2006, Thomas recorded a half-sack in two appearances last season. Nelson had one tackle in three appearances in 2006 and three stops in four appearances last season before missing the final five games with a dislocated wrist. Both showed great potential in last year’s junior varsity win over Hargrave (Va.) Military Academy, a prep school annually filled with some of the nation’s top talent — but still a far cry from the Southeastern Conference.

Robert Ayers shifted from end to tackle on some passing downs last season, but he’s optimistic that the team’s unproven talent will allow him to stay outside as a senior.

“If it’s called on for me to do (play inside), then I’ll do it,” Ayers said. “I’ll do whatever the coaches ask me, but Victor Thomas, Chase Nelson and Donald Langley are working their (tails) off. Victor Thomas is probably one of the strongest guys on the team, and he’s getting confidence. Those guys are going to be here to play, in my opinion.

“If I have to do it, then I will. But it looks like Vic Thomas and Donald and Chase are really wanting it now.”

And they know they’ll get dogged if they don’t, because John Chavis’s best UT defenses haven’t required blitzing linebackers to pressure the backfield.

“In college, you have to play every single down like it’s your last,” Langley said. “Every guy I go against on my team, they’re on scholarship, too. They were their high school’s superstars. They were All-Americans. They were top 100 recruits. They were just as talented as I am, and maybe even more. You’ve got to play, and you’ve got to play now.

“An opportunity like this, I have to jump on it. I’m not going to take it easy. I’m not going to let it go. I’m not going to let it slip.”