Tennessee Helmet Decals?

*Credit to Reed Carringer at Football Time Magazine for re-bringing this to my attention. Somewhere in the midst of transcribing the 1,500 words Butch spoke, this got lost on me. But I was in the room as it unfolded.

Tonight in a meeting with 60 student leaders from SGA and Greek Life, UT coach Butch Jones dropped a secret about an upcoming addition to UT’s helmets.

In regards to a question about a poster on the wall in the football team meeting room that reads “Lead country ‘63’ strain and swarm,” Jones launched into an explanation of what ‘63’ means within the football program.

Essentially, it means that players are expected to give three efforts over the span of each six second play.

To remind his team of this, Jones puts subliminal messages everywhere.

But here’s what he had to say about a not so subliminal way that players will be reminded of “63.”

“We’ll start something new,” Jones said. “I haven’t told this to anybody, so now you guys have it. From here on out, the person that plays with ’63 effort’ will wear a little ’63 decal’ on the back of their helmet signifying they played the hardest in the previous game.”

In regards to how common they would be on UT helmets - based on the Austin Peay game -Jones said there were a lot of players who gave one or two good efforts over a four second span.

“In order for us to play in our football program, each individual has to play hard for six seconds and give three great efforts,” Jones said. “So we’ll actually count out the efforts when we watch the film.”

The strain and swarm refer to straining as in giving effort and swarming as in swarming to the football on defense.

---- Not sure how newsworthy this truly is. But someone else reported it, so it would have been lazy just to sit here and do homework when I had the info and direct quote. Anyway, I'm sports editor at The Daily Beacon, UT's student newspaper. Follow my work on Twitter @DavidWCobb and @UTBeacon_Sports

 

 

 

A photo of a helmet with the number 63 on the side with the poster above. Sorry it's blurry, I shot this with my I-phone then zoomed in way farther than is reasonable for a weak camera.
Jones said the helmet was an old UT helmet that they put the number on to remind the team to make three efforts for a total of six seconds each play.