Young DBs of 2018 ready for more in ’19

KNOXVILLE — Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt wasted no time throwing three freshman defensive backs — Trevon Flowers, Alontae Taylor and Bryce Thompson — into the fire last season. “Throwing” being the operative word.

The trio played a lot in the Volunteers’ season opener against West Virginia, combining for 10 tackles. Flowers and Taylor started the game, with Flowers breaking up a pass and Taylor being credited with a partially blocked punt. That was the good.

The bad was that the three were part of a secondary that was torched by quarterback Will Grier for 429 yards passing and five touchdowns in a 40-14 loss to the Mountaineers.

“It definitely was a wakeup call (that) we’re not in high school no more,” Thompson recalled this week. “There’s people that can actually play on this level. It just humbled me. It honestly humbled us real quick.”

Life comes at people fast, especially when they’re learning on the fly. Both Taylor and Thompson had played more

offense in high school and were switched to defensive back full time after arriving on campus, with Taylor starting his career at wide receiver before moving to the other side of the ball. Flowers took three years off from football in high school to concentrate on baseball and didn’t pick up the sport again until his senior year. He had signed a letter of intent to play baseball at Kentucky before changing course after playing football his final year of high school.

But the freshmen learned from those early experiences last season. Thompson started 10 games and went on to earn Freshman All-America honors, totaling 34 tackles, three interceptions, four tackles for loss and 10 passes defended. Taylor started nine and finished the season with 40 tackles, while Flowers — who missed five games due to injury — finished with nine tackles.

“I feel like we learned a lot last year,” Taylor said. “Consistency, being competitive — we compete every single day, and you can learn something different from everybody in the defensive room. You’ve got to get your feet wet. By the middle of the season everything was good, but I feel that was for the whole defensive backfield.

“We were more consistent at the end, but we’ve got to be better.”

Flowers could be in line to start at safety opposite Nigel Warrior this season, while the corners are set to be manned by Taylor and Thompson, who both appear to have made big strides going into season two.

Both Pruitt and new defensive coordinator Derrick Ansley — the two coaches who work with the Vols’ secondary — noted that they’ve seen tremendous strides this offseason.

“Corner’s a tough spot to be thrown into the fray as a freshman in the SEC,” Ansley said recently. “(Taylor) did some good things, and he’s got a lot of room for improvement. Same thing with Bryce. Again, a freshman that played a lot last year, really good ball skills. We’re expecting him to take a little jump, stepping into a leadership role, doing things the right way and being accountable.”

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.