Tennessee football is looking to turn the page from a big win against Kentucky to a great week of preparation for a road test at Texas A&M. To preview the game, Vols head coach Josh Heupel spoke on The Mike Keith Show.

Here’s what he said.

On how he assesses the run game vs. Kentucky

“Highly successful at the end of it. Early in the football game, we missed a couple of cuts. (Daune Morris) gets going with a big explosive run down the middle of the football field. All parties did a great job of executing there. And I love the way that we finished the game, being able to control the clock, drive the football and finish in the end zone.”

On what happened to open up the Daune Morris touchdown

“They ended up bringing pressure, rotated their boundary safety all the way out to speed. And at the end of the day, the pressure is up the field. We give the football. We do a great job of climbing our left tackle. Dave Sanders climbs up to the Mike. We get movement on an edge defender that’s slanting inside with our left guard. And Daune does a great job of pressing it and escaping to grass.”

On if that was Arion Carter’s best game as a Vol

“Violent and disruptive. I pointed it out today, just his ability to take his preparation, incorporate it into what he sees on game day. He’s calling out a couple of plays before the ball is even snapped. There’s a critical third down, recognizes a screen formation, goes and blows up the point man and makes the tackle for loss. He played extremely hard out in space, did a good job in coverage. And when we dialed up pressure with him, he got home.”

On the linebacker corps having its best game

“Yeah, I thought holistically the second level of our defense did a great job. One, just the communication pre-snap, a lot of eye candy, breaking the huddle, aligning quickly, setting our front the right way, and then playing violent and getting people on the ground. Tackled really well at the second level.”

On how DaSaahn Brame is doing after hitting his head and exiting the game

“DaSaahn is doing good. We feel like he’ll be in a great spot for game day.”

On why the Brame play in the end zone is not a touchdown

“When I was talking with the officials, we haven’t gotten the report back post-game yet. That typically happens in the middle of the week. But at the end of the day, he didn’t come down with the football. Didn’t maintain control of it when he was on the ground. So that was the ruling that they gave me. They said that they did review it up top as well.”

On clarifying why it wasn’t a touchdown

“(laughing) I’m going to get you with our head of officials.”

On Texas A&M being 4-5

“Yeah, don’t let the record deceive you.”

On Texas A&M returning home, being talented

“Yeah, they’ve been gone from their home field for about a month. It’s going to be a great venue, atmosphere to play in. I’ve been down there multiple times as a coach and as a player. It will be a special opportunity for us, and it’s going to take us being at our best. They’re extremely talented defensively, not giving up many points. They got talent at all three levels of the defense. Offensively, they got skilled players, they got backs, their offensive line is really good and they got a quarterback that can hurt you, and he can do it with his feet, too. You look at it a week ago, close to 470 yards offense. The point total didn’t match what they were doing during the course of the football game. A week before that, they’re in Tuscaloosa and have the lead at the end of the third quarter. This is a really good football team.”

On Texas A&M being physical on defense

“They do play that way. Their front extremely big. They have length on the edges. They do a great job of two-gapping, disrupting the blocks, tearing off, making tackles. And their second level is extremely active. And the third level does a really good job fitting and tackling as well.”

On what needs to happen this week to follow up the Kentucky game

“We got a flush last week. As competitors, everyone around you is going to want to talk about the previous week. We’re only as good as the next one. Focus in on our preparation. We got to win that. We got to practice well. And we got to take it with us to College Station on the road. But it’s 11 on 11 between the white lines. We have to do the ordinary, everyday things at a really high level consistently for 60 minutes against a really good football team.”

On the 24-team playoff being approved

“I think for our league in particular, the depth, the quality of it gives us an opportunity as a league to continue to get more teams in and showcase the talent and the type of football that we play in this league.”