There are two characteristics that Vols coach Butch Jones looks for in players.
Resolve and resiliency.
Throughout the week, Jones has mentioned players like Corey Vereen and LaTroy Lewis, both of whom he said brought leadership and resolve battling through injuries throughout their careers and both of whom will graduate.
When asked specifically about Lewis, Jones brought up the senior’s leadership on and off the field.
“When he speaks, our football team listens,” Jones said on Wednesday in the Ray and Lucy Hand Digital Studio.
Lewis, a fifth-year senior from Akron, Ohio, has had a long journey to get to this game – his last game at Neyland Stadium. Recruited by the previous regime as a 3-star recruit, defensive end, Lewis spent his first year as a redshirt and then played in only six games as a RS freshman, recording only four tackles.
Over the next two seasons, he would play in all 26 games but only start six of those. Now in his redshirt senior season, he has seen his resolve tested.
Fellow fifth-year senior Charles Folger said on Wednesday that Lewis and he had been through the ringer together.
But not before saying all fifth-year guys remember the “Dooley year” that they were here and giving a great “Where’s Rommel?” impersonation in reference to Dooley’s connection between his 2010 team and the German soldiers.
“Guys like (Lewis) mean the world to me,” Folger said. “Guys that will stick around and still be your best friend even though we have gone through so freaking much.”
Lewis kicked off this season with a career-high in tackles against App State, only to get injured the next week against Virginia Tech.
He next returned against Georgia in Athens where he caused a game-altering fumble and watched his offense pull off the impossible – a last-second Hail Mary that won the game for the Vols.
That, Lewis said, is a moment he’ll remember for a long time.
“It was one of the craziest moments of my life,” Lewis said.
Last week against the Wildcats, Lewis moved into the interior of the defensive line. He would record seven total tackles, tying his career high from earlier in the year and had 1.5 tackles for loss with a fumble recovery and a sack.
“It was a lot different where I didn’t have a lot of space on the edge,” Lewis said. “As a defensive end, most times, it’s almost like a linebacker where I always have at least one shoulder free … Things happened a lot faster.”
Defensive tackle Corey Vereen said on Wednesday that Lewis’ switch to the inside wasn’t an easy one.
“That’s a true testament of perseverance,” Vereen said. “A self-made guy who comes to work every day and just went in there. We didn’t even have to ask him.”
Meanwhile, fellow senior Vereen has taken a very different path to his final game at Neyland
Stadium.
Vereen, a true senior from Florida, was a 3-star linebacker recruit and a part of what he called the “first bricks” references Coach Jones’ “brick-by-brick” mentality.
Upon arrival, Vereen was asked to play immediately playing in nine of 13 games his freshman year, all of which however were at defensive end and not linebacker.
Over the next three years, Vereen would become a staple in the one-two punch of he and Derek Barnett.
But Vereen said his greatest memory came this year when the Vols snapped an 11-game losing streak to Florida.
But through it all, Vereen said that he’s just happy for the time he’s spent here at Tennessee.
“It was everything I hoped for when I was getting recruited,” he said. “A real gift from God. I’m
thankful for it.”
Both Vereen and Lewis were asked what it would be like this week as they play their last game in Neyland, running through the “T” one last time and possibly competing for an SEC title.
Both said it would be an “emotional experience” but that they were concentrating on the game and would reflect back on everything when it was all over.
“Ain’t nothing gonna happen if we don’t beat Missouri,” Vereen said.
The outcome of the Florida-LSU game, which kicks off at 1 p.m. on Saturday, depends on whether or not the Vols win the SEC East – the Vols have to win out and Florida has to lose to LSU – Tennessee’s road to Atlanta doesn’t begin unless they beat the Tigers this Saturday at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.
Win or lose on Saturday, Jones said that he knows all seniors – Josh Dobbs, Cam Sutton and Jalen Reeves-Maybin included – have given their all for Tennessee.
“They’ve (all) made a lasting impact on Tennessee football,” Jones said on Wednesday.
Corey Vereen, #50, takes down a member of the Appalachian State offense on Sep. 1, 2016.
