Tee Martin on playing Florida in The Swamp: You come to Tennessee for games like this
By Andrew Olson
Published:
For the first time since 1999, Tee Martin will be wearing Tennessee orange inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturday.
Saturday’s game won’t be Martin’s first trip back to The Swamp since his playing days. He was on the Kentucky Wildcats staff from 2010-11. But the 2019 trip is a little different for Martin. This time, he’s coming back with his Volunteers.
“You want to go to The Swamp, where it will be crazy and loud and hot. You want that. That’s why you come to Tennessee. That’s why you come to the SEC. You don’t shy away from that; you welcome that. And so that’s one of the reasons I say going down there this week, you have to go down there and play physical football,” Martin told the Knoxville Quarterback Club on Monday, per 247Sports. “Play good on offense, play good on defense and let’s see what happens when the last second ticks off that clock. But I think we have a group of young men who are buying in. I think we have a group of young men who have been very close to success a couple times this year, felt the feeling last week and wants more of it. That’s what we want. We have a long season ahead of us and we’re still growing and learning how to practice, learning how to prepare. Look forward to that paying dividends on game days.”
For Martin and the Vols staff, there’s nothing like rivalry week to get the juices flowing.
“Today we won’t see our players, but tomorrow, they’ll come in and we’ll do scouting reports and all that stuff. And I’m going to try to be calm when I talk about these Gators. But I doubt if I’ll be able to hold back the emotion,” Martin said.
“And the emotions, if you don’t wakeup today knowing that it’s Florida week, something is wrong,” he continued. “There is really something wrong with you. And yeah, we are fired up. Jim Chaney, having been at Tennessee and Georgia, pretty sure you know how he feels about the Gators, right? We know what that’s going to be like.”
As far as the actual game, Martin also shared some thoughts on UT’s Week 4 opponent.
“You’re talking about a team that beat Miami earlier in the year,” Marting said. “They’ve been on the road twice. Two big road wins for them. And this is going to be our first road test. So it’s going to be challenge for our players to understand the environment that we’re going into. That you can’t turn the ball over on the road.”
More from Martin at the Knoxville QB Club can be found on GoVols247.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaign of Fred Taylor.
