Tennessee has taken the first two days of its bye week to focus on its own team, as more of a fall camp approach, coach Jeremy Pruitt said. For the rest of this week, the Vols will move their focus to Arkansas for when they return to action next week.

Pruitt, on the SEC coaches media teleconference, expanded on the three-game losing streak, and what’s changed.

“The one thing we’ve done, the first two games is we were plus in the turnover margin, the last three we were negative… we have not really played clean football in the first five games… we have been able to work less experienced guys this week… hoping to create some depth,” he said.

Pruitt also shared his thoughts on what became the most notable personnel change among staff in the SEC when defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh was fired and Pruitt took over coaching that position. When will Pruitt make a hire?

“It’s something that we’re going to do when the season’s over with, I like where our defensive line is headed right now,” Pruitt said. “Again, we obviously weren’t happy with that position then I felt like we improved last week. Not that I know that it showed on the field all the time. But we honestly in my opinion probably played against the best offensive line that we’ve played this year. But, you know, watching the first two days of practice this week I continue to see it, and we we’ve got to improve up there we’ve got guys that have experience and, you know, we’ve got to be able to play on the other side of the line of scrimmage we’ve got to be able to create negative plays and, you know, affect the quarterback.”