2-minute drill: Tennessee returns to practice building off scrimmage #1

Tennessee was back to work on Saturday looking to not only correct things from Thursday’s first major scrimmage, but also to build off some of the good things Josh Heupel and his coaching staff saw, which included his defensive front.

“The run game part of it, the defensive line, interior and guys on the edge, but I thought our backers did a great job fitting gaps and our safeties were involved in it too,” Heupel said following Thursday’s scrimmage. “And for a first scrimmage, I thought there was a positive sign of just our tackling in space. So I thought that was a real positive. Defensively as a whole, you guys have heard me say it before, when we got here, a lot of the kids that had left the program, not all of ’em, but a lot of ’em were on the defensive side of the football and, you know, we’ve been, within the first couple of years, we added some depth last year that helped us take a step, in particular in the run defense. I feel like we are continuing to add some real depth and competition. And that leads itself to real competition in practice. Who’s gonna be the first one running out? How many snaps each guy’s gonna play. But the competition on the practice field in the meeting room is a coach’s best friend. And we have that. That’s in the interior, it’s out on the edges too. The athleticism, the ability to rush the passer and not just defend the run, it’s also showing up here in training camp too. I like some of the strides that we’ve taken.”

The defensive coaches are continuing to work on building depth at all three levels of the defense where they have more bodies to work with than they have had to this point. Now, just how much is that depth going to push the starters moving forward. It’s a challenges everyone has heard as the kickoff is just 21 days away.

Offensively, Tennessee was cautious with the wide receivers on Thursday holding Bru McCoy, Dont’e Thornton, Ramel Keyton and Squirrel White out of the scrimmage which gave more opportunities for Chas Nimrod and Kaleb Webb.

The post 2-minute drill: Tennessee returns to practice building off scrimmage #1 appeared first on On3.