‘What are you gonna be?’: Rodney Garner wants more than a number change from Elijah Simmons
Elijah Simmons liked how he played back in the spring, so Tennessee’s redshirt senior defensive lineman decided a new number would help further cement the changes he has been working so hard to make.
Out went jersey No. 51, the number he had worn the last four seasons. Now the 6-foot-2, 340-pounder is squeezing into jersey No. 10.
“I felt like a new number, a new me,” Simmons told reporters after Tuesday’s practice, the sixth of fall camp.
Defensive line coach Rodney Garner isn’t ready to go that far, though. Sometimes it’s a new Simmons, the one wearing jersey No. 10. Sometimes it’s the old Simmons, looking more like he should be back in his old No. 51.
“Everybody knows he switched his number to 10,” Garner said during his press conference on Tuesday, “and I’m saying, if you’re a (defensive lineman wearing) 10, you need to be elite, you know?
“So my challenge to him, sometimes 10 shows up to practice, sometimes 51 shows up. So we just gotta figure out who you are. What are you gonna be?”
Elijah Simmons had eight tackles in 13 games last season
Who Simmons was for Tennessee last season was an interior defensive lineman that appeared in all 13 games but only made eight tackles, with five solo, three assists and one tackle for loss. He had 11 tackles in five games in 2021 and 10 as a freshman in 2020.
There’s one starting point for Simmons to always be the No. 10 version that Garner is looking for. And it’s not going to be easy to accomplish.
“(Number) 10 and 51 are different guys,” Garner said. “If he’s going to be 10, he needs to get himself in really, really good shape and be able to play out the whole game like 10.”
Simmons was a three-star in-state prospect in the 2019 recruiting class, out of Nashville’s Pearl-Cohn High School. He was ranked 64th among defensive linemen and No. 20 overall in the state of Tennessee.
Garner said Simmons has the power to match his size. He’s got “initial quickness” and “built-in pad-level and leverage,” too, Garner added.
But there has to be more to meet that talent and make the most of it.
“He’s just gotta learn,” Gardner said, “his biggest enemy is just when fatigue sets in, wen he gets tired.”
Simmons admitted Tuesday he wanted to go lower, looking first for a single-digit jersey number before realizing they were all accounted for. Instead he settled on No. 10, the same number that 5-foot-10, 165-pound Squirrel White, the speedy sophomore slot receiver nearly 200 pounds south of Simmons, will wear on offense.
‘It’s time now to change who I want to be in the future’
More than anything, the new number is a daily reminder he wears on his chest.
“It’s time now to change who I want to be in the future,” Simmons said. “I want to go to the next level, so I need to buy in. I feel like I need to buy in and just take the coaching, just how it needs to be. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, basically.”
Step one is acknowledging the difference between the two players that his coach has seen in him. He’s did that Tuesday in a room full of reporters.
“I would say 51, he’s a guy that, he strains sometimes, he took off some plays,” Simmons said candidly. “But he always wanted to finish.”
That’s a memory he’s trying to make everyone forget. That’s how he’s trying to finish now.
“But No. 10,” Simmons continued, starting to snap his fingers at the podium, “(is) continuously fighting, straining, competing every day. Coming out for the day ready to play, ready to fight the next opponent. Each and every day, getting better.”
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