Xavier Mitchell loves that tackle against Air Force.

He loves that play where he collars Chad Hall in the backfield for a loss, the one that preserved a 31-30 victory and prevented a monumental Falcons upset.

It's not that the 6-foot-2, 252-pound junior doesn't understand the impact that play had on the Vols.

He loves it for its simplicity, for what it illustrates about maturity and knowing one's role and being comfortable.

"Just to be able to be in the right place at the right time," Mitchell says. "You know you're doing things right when coach calls a play and you're where you're supposed to be.

"That was really uplifting to me to be able to do it without thinking about it."

Seems odd, doesn't it?

A game-saving tackle in front of 106,000 fans, a scissor-kicking celebration that sent his shoe sailing over Tennessee's bench and Mitchell's defining memory of the play is his ability to react without thinking.

Maybe it's odd.

Or maybe it's because Xavier Mitchell is tired of thinking.

* * *

Last fall before Tennessee stumbled to a 5-6 season, Mitchell didn't want to be in Knoxville.

And it had nothing to do with football.

Mitchell, freshly rehabbed after back surgery in the offseason, was as excited as anyone about the Vols' chances in 2005.

But shortly before UT opened against UAB on Sept. 3, Mitchell's mind was 500 miles away.

His thoughts were in his hometown of Long Beach, Miss., a scant 13 miles from Bay St. Louis, where the center of Hurricane Katrina's fury made landfall in late August.

His thoughts were with his mother, grandmother and sister, all of whom lived in the area.

Mitchell had been through hurricanes before living on the gulf coast, but the most powerful storm he ever experienced was Hurricane Camille.

Family members told stories of that storm's destruction, how it changed lives.

Then came Katrina.

All Mitchell could do was listen again.

And he felt guilty.

"I kind of felt disappointed," Mitchell said. "I felt like I should be going through the same thing. I thought it wasn't fair that I was sitting up here in a landlocked state, while they're sitting on the coast getting hit by a hurricane.

"That's all I could think about. I know how much devastation that causes. It was really tough for me to sit there and wonder what it's like to go through that. I felt like I should be going through that with them."

Mitchell was in Knoxville, riding out a different kind of storm.

With phone lines down, he had difficulty contacting his family.

His mother moved several times after the family's house was severely damaged. His grandmother's house just north of Gulfport still leaks.

In his mind, the picture was much worse.

"It left me in no-man's-land, just wondering what was going on down there," he said.

"When family comes in and all your friends, that's a tough situation," defensive ends coach Steve Caldwell said. "Unless you're in that situation you don't know how it affects him down deep."

Classes and football and life went on.

So did the constant thoughts of his family's well-being and the devastation of his hometown.

It's just that everything else had the volume turned down.

"School and papers -- there was so much going on in my life," he says. "That was such a big distraction to everything that was happening here.

"I really can't explain how big a distraction that was and how hard it was to stay focused on what I had to do here knowing that my family's 500 miles away."

All Mitchell could do was what his mother expected him to do: focus on his life here and do the best he could.

Faith helped

"I put my faith in God," he said. "That helped me a lot to know that everyone, mom and my sister and my grandma, who were down there has a strong belief in God."

* * *

When Tennessee coaches talk about Mitchell, the word maturity is bound to come up.

Teammates and coaches alike talk about how the junior has emerged as a leader.

Maturity comes with experience.

Mitchell's experience on the football field extends back to his freshman year.

He played in all 12 of UT's games in 2004, spelling defensive ends Parys Harrelson and Jason Hall.

He added eight games last season before a shoulder injury sidelined him for UT's last three games.

That Mitchell is this far along is in some ways remarkable, considering he hadn't participated in a single spring practice.

Back surgery held him out of the 2005 spring. Shoulder surgery kept him on the sidelines last spring.

"That's tough," defensive coordinator John Chavis said. "He's done a great job getting himself ready to play. He's mature, and that's a big part of it. He's not an 18-year-old. He's a young man, and that shows on the football field."

It shows on the field in large part because of what Mitchell had to deal with off the field last fall.

Football came crashing down with season-ending shoulder surgery and a 5-6 season.

Life came crashing down because he was so far from home when he felt he had to be there.

"For a 19-year-old, that's pretty hard," said Mitchell, who is20. "I didn't just react and say, 'I'm going to grow up.' I was down in the dumps. I was sad. I went through a lot of things on campus."

Mitchell, who will make his second career start when the No. 15 Vols play host to Marshall on Saturday (4 p.m., TV: Pay-per-view), emerged from the ordeal a better person. And a better football player.

"After coming out of that," Mitchell says, "it really helped me to see I can't let myself get the way I did after the hurricane and after the tough season we had and after shoulder surgery."

* * *

In December, Mitchell helped his mother settle into her new home in Fayetteville, N.C.

His sister is set up in a new apartment back in Long Beach.

This summer, he went back to Mississippi to visit with friends and family still living there.

Progress has been made, but Long Beach isn't the same.

Then again, neither is Mitchell.

"It has changed, it's come up a little bit," Mitchell said of his hometown. "I seriously believe it won't be back to normal for eight or nine years."

In eight or nine years, Mitchell could be in the NFL.

That's where sophomore defensive end Robert Ayres sees him, at least.

"The sky's the limit for Xavier," Ayres said. "He's a guy who's going to play in the League for a couple of years."

No matter what the future holds for Mitchell, he'll be ready.

That much is certain.

"I want to get my priorities straight with school and my spiritual life and try to keep everything under control so if something devastating does happen, I can handle it better than I did last year," he said.

It's still an on-going process.

That Air Force tackle was a light-bulb moment -- a moment that hammered home the simplicity of being in the right place at the right time, of feeling rather than thinking.

It's a process, sure, but it's one that is well under way.

"I like what he's bringing to the table from a toughness standpoint, and to be honest he's bringing a lot of leadership qualities," Chavis said. "We'll keep growing and he's going to keep growing."