Tennessee football 3-2-1: Vols head into final week of spring practice
It’s time for our football weekly 3-2-1 of spring practice, three observations, two questions and a prediction as Tennessee hit the final week of spring drills ending on Saturday with the orange and white game in Neyland Stadium
Three observations
Tennessee is better at running back — Josh Heupel and his staff have upgraded basically every position on the team through recruiting and development. One position where that is noticeable this spring is in the offensive backfield. Tennessee is returning everyone from a year ago. Jabari Small is out after having shoulder surgery but those returning guys behind him continue to grow and improve. Jaylen Wright has taken steps forward each off-season physically. Wright, who was the Vols best back last season, continues to play more physical and with more confidence.
Speaking of confidence, that’s what Dylan Sampson is gaining. Sampson is having a real solid spring. He’s five pounds heavier but is playing faster because his improved knowledge of the offense is slowing things down.
“I would say just operating in this offense,” Sampson said of his improvement. “I came in and I tried to learn as quickly as a could, but when you get real game reps, you come in with a different sense of confidence. So, now it’s time to take the next step: being solid in pass protection and just operating quickly in this offense like a veteran.”
Then you throw in the two newcomers in Cam Seldon and Desean Bishop and the room has some depth to it. Seldon has been limited with a big of a nagging shoulder this spring, but got major scrimmage action on Thursday and didn’t disappoint. Bishop has been good in both scrimmages this spring. No one is anointing either anything at this point but both have had good springs and Bishop has clearly taken advantage of his chances.
“Not surprising what DeSean has done,” Heupel said. “I say that, he’s handled the transition into college football extremely well. We thought he was extremely athletic, he had a great vision, pace as a running back coming out of high school. He’s done a really good job of handling the communication system and not being too big for him since day one. Really proud of him.”
It’s a luxury — Tennessee has spent too many springs the last decade plus breaking in a new head coach. They have had to many springs were a new offense or defense or both was being installed. The Vols are enjoying the continuity and the fact they are returning a good number of veterans on both sides of the ball. The result is that youth is being served this spring, which is great because they are learning and playing through mistakes.
Center Cooper Mays could have scrimmaged on Thursday but it’s more important the Vols find a back up center to Mays than for Mays to scrimmage so Addison Nichols is getting all he wants and then some this spring which is a win for Nichols and the Vols. Same at linebacker where Aaron Beasley hasn’t scrimmaged this spring and Keenan Pili was held out of Thursday’s scrimmage. The result was the defense gave up som chunk plays because of bad run fits and mistakes, but that’s ok because the mistakes are youthful errors that they are getting to learn from which is key for development.
And that idea is a concept that’s been pretty foreign to this program for a while.
It’s going to be a fascinating summer on the o-line — It’s not surprise to me that Tennessee will leave spring practice unsettled on the offensive line. No one expected them to find the answers at offensive tackle and left guard will be a battle in fall camp. Now you know who the contenders are. At guard, Ollie Lane has experience and has been steady for you the last couple of years. Clearly, this staff is pushing Addison Nichols to get comfortable at center, but he’s going to factor into the battle for the guard spot.
Then you have the tackles and who is the answer at right tackle? Dayne Davis has started there, but what does right tackle look like when fall camp resumes. Who on this team is going to put in all the extra work this summer to more comfortable on that side.
Offensive line development isn’t as easy as it is for quarterbacks, receivers and defensive backs. But the NCAA allows coaches two hours a week to work with players. The edge guys on the offensive line and Glen Elarbee have to take full advantage of it.
Two questions
How does Heupel handle Saturday? — If coaches told the truth, few if anyone would be interested in playing an intersquad scrimmage. I know some coaches after spoken about scrimmaging other teams, but I don’t believe that’s going to happen. It’s been talked about for years but there’s no movement.
So how does Heupel handle Saturday. Do they just put the ball down and play a game 1’s vs. 1’s? Will it be 1’s vs. 2’s? Who’s going to scrimmage? Who are they going to hold out? It will be interesting to see. What we do know is that they won’t be drafting teams, or having some crazy scoring system that no one can figure out.
Is there any roster movement coming? —On April 15th, Tennessee will wrap up spring practice and welcome the start of the portal window which will be open for the rest of the month.
It doesn’t seem like Tennessee is looking to do much of anything if anything during this period although you never say never.
The bigger story line is with the current Vols. Does everyone remain or does someone following their role in spring practice look for greener pastures elsewhere. After a few months off, we are heading back to official portal watch on Saturday.
One prediction
Saturday will be pretty vanilla for two reasons. One, the hope is that you get no one hurt so you are going to take chances with anyone. Two, Josh Heupel isn’t interested in showing anything to anyone with his game being on television. So look for base offense with base defense and a lot of young guys getting a lot of reps on Saturday afternoon.
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