In what may go down as one of the crazier non-coaching change days in Tennessee football history, the Vols still took the practice field to prepare for Ole Miss.

Controversy surrounded the team after news surfaced that freshmen Janzen Jackson, Nu'Keese Richardson and Mike Edwards were arrested early Thursday morning for their alleged involvement in an attempted armed robbery in the parking lot of the Pilot store located on Cumberland Ave.

Even with all the distractions, Kiffin said the team was able to have a good day of practice.

Practice today was really good. I thought the guys performed really well; we're very focused.Lane Kiffin, UT head coach "Practice today was really good. I thought the guys performed really well; we're very focused. We've got to get ready for a big-time game," Kiffin said after addressing the media regarding the arrests situations.

"I thought that Tuesday was okay, but I thought the last days have been really good, but we have a lot of work left to do," Kiffin said. "This is a very hard opponent to prepare for. They do a bunch of stuff on offense and defense, so we still have a lot of work to do."

With the threat of suspension looming for starting safety Jackson, Darren Myles Jr. and Prentiss Waggner will be forced to step in again. Jackson missed the Memphis game on Saturday as he was suspended for disciplinary reasons.

"I don't know (who will start). Prentiss [Waggner] has practiced really well. Darren [Myles Jr.] was out here, moved around better today; had not moved around very much all week, so we'll have to test him out tomorrow and on game day," Kiffin said addressing the safety position.

Kiffin said Myles has been battling a hip issue and will have to overcome the injury to play in Oxford Saturday.

The arrests come at a bad time for the Vols. Tennessee is sitting at 5-4 and poised to make a run at a January bowl game, but will now have to deal with the distractions and adversity that come with off-the-field incidents.

"Football is about adversity, life is about adversity. No matter what happens with our guys on the field or off the field, we always have to (answer) how do you deal with adversity, how do you take the next step, how do you improve, how do you learn from it," Kiffin said.

"Whenever we've had adversity in games, for the most part, we've started to perform better. There's been some games early on that we did not perform well after adversity, but lately we have. We've responded whether it's been we've turned the ball over and our defense stops them, or Jonathan [Crompton] takes us down the field after a bad possession."

Ole Miss D-line provides challenge

Ole Miss ranks 12th in the nation in scoring defense and a big part of that is the defensive lineman that anchor the defense.

"I think it's one of the best fronts we've played all year long, if not the best," offensive coordinator Jim Chaney said. "They have talent inside and talent outside. Some teams have good interior players, some teams have the good defensive ends, they have both."

Offense Rolling

In three of Tennessee's last four games the offense has been able to rack up over 30 points. Chaney said this stretch has been one of the best of the season for the offense.

"I think that we're clicking right now as well as we have been all fall, without any question. They practice well, they've got a little swagger to them, they have some confidence, they're having fun playing football. When you get to that point, you're playing pretty good football and right now we are," Chaney said.

Along with the points has come with the ability to not turn the ball over. Chaney said that comes from preaching daily ball security.

"Coach Kiffin doesn't go a day without talking about ball security; we show them ball security daily. It is a major point of our program is the ball and the kids understand that and their doing a great job," Chaney said.

"They also understand that they're not going to play if the ball's loose and that came about early on, but we're doing a fantastic job and we hope to continue that. That's a point of emphasis in our program, without question."