Josh Heupel highlighted the growth and development across the team.
Knoxville, Tenn. – Unlike Tennessee’s first scrimmage of preseason fall camp, Thursday’s scrimmage operated like a road game.
The key difference in how the second scrimmage operated more like a road game was likely the timing of when crowd noise was pumped into the stadium.
The offense worked a bit more in red zone and goal line situations, which as much as you want to simulate that in practice Heupel emphasizes there’s nothing like a scrimmage to put you in those situations where you have to be quicker on your feet, move on to the next play, and quickly process the defense.
What Heupel saw from the quarterbacks was continued development and command of the offense.
“For all of your quarterbacks, the green dot communication is different,” said Heupel. “Situational football, being able to reset and play the play. We try to simulate a lot of those situations during the course of practice but there’s nothing like a scrimmage to get you as close as you can be to what game day is going to be like. In general, I thought the quarterbacks handled themselves really well here. Again, situational football, being backed up coming off the goal line, your thought processes, all of those things.”
As far as the skill positions on offense, Heupel was complimentary of each group.
In the wide receiver room, Dont’e Thronton appears to be taking strides in his understanding of the offense.
No surprise, DeSean Bishop continues to be a consistent presence in the backfield. Though nothing glaringly different from scrimmage one to two, but he’s taking steps every day to get better.
“I don’t know that there’s anything glaring that was different about DeSean from scrimmage one to two. I think he’s got great command (and) comfort in what we’re doing. He continues to get better in playing without the ball, his pass protection. We’re really confident in him in that. He’s just continuing to take steps every day to continue to get better,” said Heupel.
Heupel also highlighted Peyton Lewis and Squirrel White for having a solid scrimmage.
When we focus on the tight end position, the last couple of years it’s been the one group that’s been thinner than others.
If you look at the production on the field the last two seasons that might not have been obvious, with Princeton Fant, McCallan Castles, and Jacob Warren being stars in their roles. This year, it’s essentially a brand-new group.
Ethan Davis played in just three games before redshirting, Holden Staes comes from Notre Dame, and Miles Kitselman from Alabama. They will be the main three guys Tennessee rotates.
As they continue to develop in the system, it appears it’s a unit that’ll be by committee.
“I think we’re going to have to play multiple guys at that position. All three of those guys are going to play a lot of snaps for us. As we began our tenure here, we’ve had to navigate some things, and that room has probably been thinner at times than you would want it to be. I really like the three guys that we have in there, and all of those guys are capable of playing at a championship level,” said Heupel.
This isn’t any different than how they’ve operated the last few seasons, but it’ll be interesting to see who gets more of the first-team reps this season.
The secondary seems to be progressing forward. Heupel said he likes the length and athleticism that the group brings.
They’ll also follow the model of the rest of the team by rotating guys at those positions. Heupel, however, does want to see the group continue to get better in the fundamentals and understanding of assignments.
“I’ve said it from the beginning of the offseason to our coaches and our players, it can’t just be one guy at one position. You’re going to have to play multiple guys. That’s just the nature of being in this league and the game that we play. I really do like the length (and) athleticism. I feel like this last block since our last scrimmage they’ve continued to be better just in their fundamentals, technique, assignment, [and] discipline within the structure of the defense. We have to continue to get better, good teams do, that’s during the course of the season, it’s here as we’re finishing up training camp, but really like what we’re seeing from that group,” said Heupel.
Like Tennessee, teams across the country are also adapting to the new communication systems,
From in-helmet communication, iPads on the sidelines, and TV timeouts.
“It’s a part of what you got to do. I think logistically, there’s more changes that affected everything outside of the white lines this year. You know, communication with your players, which is obviously on the field of play, too. But the coordination of that, the iPads, there’s been a lot of logistical changes that everybody inside your program has got to be ready to handle the right way,” said Heupel.
Friday is an off day for Tennessee, the Vols return to practice Saturday then after the media will hear from the special teams.