War Room: Moving to game mode, recruiting nuggets and hoop news

We begin this edition of the War Room as we always do. The War Room is a collective effort of Tennessee notes and news gathered throughout the week by the Volquest staff that is located only on the General’s Quarters. And now, it’s on with the news.

Tennessee will shift into a game week mode on Monday as the Vols wrap up fall camp and start classes. Head coach Josh Heupel likes to take the week before the official game week to go through a week of game prep so that everything is smooth and efficient on for the first game of the year. 

It allows the players to get into a routine and get a feel of game week with classes started. 

So while next week will be much more game prep style it will also be about cleaning up things they need to clean up before week one. 

You could tell by head coach Josh Heupel’s words and body language the small operation issues in Wednesday’s scrimmage ate at him. 

“The communication side I thought could’ve been better offensively. Just some of the mechanical stuff, but all in all, good, good work,” Heupel said.

“The first scrimmage in all reality was probably a little cleaner than, today’s was just operationally off the sideline play clock, you know, getting things settled as we get out there on the field. First play of drive. I’m not worried about where we’re at. We’re pretty intentional on working those things during practice. I thought today could have been cleaner but it wasn’t just one guy. It was all of us. Just need to be a little bit cleaner.” 

Tennessee practices their sideline operations every day in practice. The offensive coaches wear headsets every day during team periods so they can communicate in a setting that truly simulates the pace they want to go at on Saturday’s. Clearly, Heupel didn’t like a few hiccups they had on Wednesday and you can bet that’s at the top of the corrections list. 

But there was also plenty of good from Wednesday and this week as well. Quarterback Joe Milton has had arguably his best week according to those we have spoken with. Milton has been accurate with the ball and is making quick decisions. In observing routes versus air this week on the practice field, the timing with Milton and the receivers seems to be rounding into shape nicely. Nico Iamaleava has steadily improved the entire month as he gets more and more comfortable with the offense.

As Austin mentioned in his notes, McCallan Castles continues to show up in scrimmage settings. McCastles is growing as a blocker and that’s still a work in progress, but he’s made plays in the passing game in both scrimmages. 

Speaking of blocker, the offensive line was better on Wednesday in pass protection. One of the advantages for the offensive line against defensive fronts is the pace of play, especially if you make the first first down. With defensive coaches always preaching and coaching guys to turn and run to the ball and finish at the ball, those guys can get gassed in a hurry which slows down the pass rush and helps the offensive line. 

Now, it should be noted at this offensive line has improved overall the last 10 days or so. They aren’t settled but they have continued to improve. And they might not be settled for a bit. Certainly platooning at right tackle seems likely and the same for left guard as well, even after Cooper Mays gets back and Ollie Lane goes back to guard. Glen Elarbee has long been comfortable with playing more than five offensive linemen in a game. 

Defensively, Omarr Norman-Lott continues to be disruptive. He’s been working to get 100% healthy but he has shown up in both scrimmages and it’s clear they like what they have there. He’s going to play a lot for Rodney Garner. James Pearce flashed a little more on Wednesday but the defensive staff is still looking for more consistency out of him and Joshua Josephs as they head into the last two weeks before kickoff. Both are better than they were at any point last year, but the reality is that both are still young and still learning. 

There’s going to be a heavy rotation on the defensive front. They will rotate some at linebacker and in the secondary there will be a rotation as well. It’s the blessing of having some depth on your roster as Tennessee does heading into the season. Now, they have to get guys healthy which is the other purpose of this mock week. They will be smart with veterans and will certainly rest whoever in order to get guys healthy. 

The injuries to Desean Bishop and Tyree Weathersby are tough especially with Weathersby who was going to play this season. He was a guy who flashed early and pretty often in camp despite not getting here until June. Had he been here all spring, he is a guy who would have had plenty of buzz surrounding him. He has had the injury repaired and will begin to start the rehab process to be ready for winter workouts and spring ball. 

On the facilities front, there’s a move to start some clean up stuff in the south end zone to get it fan friendly for the home opener in three weeks. The brick work in the tunnels entering the lower bowl have stopped and won’t resume until the off-season. They have completed the south end. Obviously, there will be major renovation work going on this off-season in the south end zone concourse area. 

The aesthetics of the lower west club are basically complete. We will likely get a look at them in the next week or so, but that project is done. They are installing new monitors at the top of the lower bowl in the south end of the stadium and of course the wi-fi project continues as those guys work seven days a week to install as much as they can get installed before the Austin-Peay opener. 

The hope is to have the lower bowl completed by the opener. The work to install the access point boxes in the upper deck is in progress but that’s a slower task because of all the scaffolding needed to bore the concrete, install the concrete and then pull the wiring. 

You would like to continue that work throughout the season, but it’s hard because you have to pull all the equipment including the scaffolding out of the stadium the week of home games so you really would only get about half the week to work time you factor in the set up to resume work on Sundays and the tear down to get the stadium game ready. But that project has gone very smoothly from an installation standpoint. 

That doesn’t mean there won’t be some hiccups with it to work through on gameday. After all you don’t put 100k in there to test it. So the first real test run will be the Austin-Peay game, but the project hasn’t had any real delays. 

Recruiting

Tennessee is hoping for good news when Jordan Ross commits on Monday night. The Vols make the most sense among his finalists and seem to have a good amount of momentum heading into Monday. Ross would be a big boost to defensive line recruiting and would be a big pop to the overall class.

Virginia linebacker Chris Cole is officially set to visit Tennessee for the Austin Peay weekend which happens to be the same weekend he commits on that Sunday. Cole and Brian Jean Mary continue to build a good bond and we believe the Vols have a real shot here. We know there have been some predictions for UGA but he wouldn’t be visiting in our opinion if he was set in stone on Georgia. He will also visit USC the weekend before.

Jordan Seaton is in Nashville tonight for their game with Lipscomb. He looks like he will visit Tennessee the week of the UTSA game. He is an intriguing prospect because he hasn’t taken many visits for such a high profile kid. It’s important to note he is the one that reached out to Tennessee. He plans on taking several visits this fall which will be interesting to see how they handle all of those. Matt Ray will be on hand for this game and we hope to get more clarity on Seaton later today.

After the UTSA game will be South Carolina and Danny Okoye’s official visit. Nothing has changed on that front as we believe Tennessee continues to still have a ton of momentum with the Tulsa native.

The more we check around on Kam Mikell, the more we continue to hear that his desire to play offense is much more important than he alluded to early in the process. This certainly is a plus for Tennessee. He has yet to make a final decision on his official date as the potential of coming in for the weekend of South Carolina game remains strong.

The Vols also will continue to work Amaris Williams and Kameryn Fountain as Rodney Garner and members of the defensive staff have been in steady contact with both. 

With high school football beginning, the Tennessee scouting department will start combing through a ton of highlights over the next 4-5 weeks to see if any new names emerge.

Hoops

After returning from Italy last week the Tennessee team and the staff has a week and some change to scatter and unwind before returning to campus this week/weekend to prepare for the start of classes and the start of preseason workouts. 

As we’re fond of saying, no coach is ever going to say ‘we had just a terrible summer,’ but as Tennessee exits the summer the feeling we’ve gotten from those around the program is that they like this team and the new pieces that were added in the offseason. 

The buzz around Dalton Knecht continues to be positive. We’re not suggesting that he’s going to be a super star, but at this point it would be a surprise if he’s not a solid scorer. 

Everyone around the program expected Jordan Gainey to be able to shoot the basketball and he hasn’t disappointed in that regard. But Gainey has impressed with his skill set outside of his just his shooting stroke. 

When you go into the transfer portal you’re expecting to get someone who can help immediately and that looks to be the case with those two additions. 

Among the freshman it’s no surprise that Freddie Dillone is leaving the summer with some confidence. Dillone doesn’t seem like a freshman after being here and practicing for the entire spring semester. It feels like that time has been put to good use. 

I don’t know that you’re ever going to see that move become common place in basketball because kids will miss the majority of their senior seasons, but it certainly looks like it’s going to pay dividends for Dillone. 

Sticking with the freshmen it seems like the staff liked what they saw from JP Estrella this summer and the strides he made over the last 2+ months. He obviously is going to need to continue to get stronger, but even with his lack of bulk he doesn’t shy away from physical play in the paint. He has also drawn some praise for his basketball IQ. 

Zakai Zeigler continues to be on schedule but we’re not to the point yet where anyone can confidently predict a return date. 

We don’t have anything new to add about the ’24 recruiting efforts from what we posted last week.

As of now Tennessee has three official visitors scheduled and they’re going to get those visits out of the way early. 

Chase McCarty, who is from Huntsville, Al. but is attending IMG Academy, will be in town the weekend of Aug. 25. 

North Carolina point guard Bishop Boswell will be in on Sept. 8 and he’ll be joined that weekend by Las Vegas prospect Pharaoh Compton. 

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