As expected, Tommy Tuberville and the rest of the football team took the unexpected death of Virgil Starks, the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Support Services hard.

"It’s a shock to all of us, " Tuberville said. "He’s been a huge part of these kids being able to work toward and education and get a degree and play football at the same time.

"He fought for the players real hard in a lot of situations on the hill over there, early registration, a lot of things that help a student athlete. And not just football. I’m talking all athletes."

For Senior Day against Tennessee-Martin, Starks stood on the field with linebacker Chris Evans, whose parents were unable to attend.

"He’s kind of like a head coach in academics," Tuberville said. "And sometimes the players think that he was on them a little bit too hard, but as I told them, he was doing it for the betterment of them. He took his job seriously. He worked at it hard, day and night and did a lot for the program."

On to some football developments:

• Tuberville expects injured defensive linemen Sen'Derrick Marks (ankles), Antonio Coleman (shoulder/ankle) and Tez Doolittle (groin) to be able to practice starting Tuesday.

• Center Jason Bosley, who left the UT Martin game after rolling his ankle, should be fine. KR Tristan Davis (hamstring) too.

• Tuberville on playing a game against an FCS team like UT Martin: "As coaches you think, 'We got it over with.' We didn't get any major injuries and we got some guys healthy."

• On playing Georgia and Alabama to close the season: "It's kind of like two Iron Bowls back to back."

• Tuberville said Neil Caudle has earned the backup quarterback job. Caudle went 4-for-5 on the final two drives of the UT Martin game. Tuberville wanted to get Caudle in during the first half, but the Skyhawks converted a long third-down conversion, then went on to score in the final minute, nixing that plan.

• Tuberville would like to see quarterback Kodi Burns protect himself more at the end of runs."You don't want him going headfirst, but yesterday he looked like a running back going down the field," Tuberville said. "He wasn't going to go down, he broke arm tackles and that's what we saw of him when he was in high school."

• School president Jay Gogue reiterated his stance that Tuberville will be evaluated after the season, as all coaches are. Tuberville had this as a response: "He's told us all about that. He told us when he first got here in our meeting with all the head coaches that each coach would be evaluated after their season. He doesn't get involved. That's the way he handles it, which I think is pretty good.