KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Heavy rain from remnants of Tropical Storm Fred greeted Tennessee football at its second and final preseason scrimmage on Tuesday morning, allowing the Volunteers to focus on ball security and building toughness.
Tennessee scrimmaged for less than two hours in conditions that could be common on a Saturday in the fall. The Vols also dressed at Neyland Stadium and went through warmups, simulating a normal game day.
“We got a chance to get out there in the rain and some adverse weather there,” head coach Josh Heupel said. “I thought special teams (and) offensively (we) handled it pretty well for the most part of the day.
“Game day, you wake up (and) no matter what the weather report has said throughout the course of the week, you’ve got to play in the elements that you’ve got. We will play in a rain game, so your mindset – offense, defense, special teams – has to be that this is the right weather for us to go out and execute. It has no bearing on who we are and what we do and how we do it.”
Heupel said all three quarterbacks – Harrison Bailey, Joe Milton III and Hendon Hooker –- executed well in the conditions and made good decisions.
“There really weren’t a ton of turnovers last week. The weather really had very little effect, for the most part. I thought the quarterbacks handled the weather (and) were able the throw the ball efficiently and effectively. I thought our wide receivers did a pretty good job. (We) didn’t have any center-quarterback issues. It was really pretty good.”
Tennessee will take Wednesday off, which is also the first day of classes of the fall semester. The Vols begin a three-day stretch of practices on Thursday morning.
Tennessee opens its 125th season of football and the Heupel era on Sept. 2 against Bowling Green. Kickoff for the special Thursday primetime event is 8 p.m. ET live on SEC Network.
Tickets are on sale now at AllVols.com.
Head Coach Josh Heupel
Post Scrimmage No. 2 | 8.17.21
Opening Statement
“Awesome day. It was great for our program (and) our players. We got a chance to get out there in the rain and some adverse weather there. I thought special teams (and) offensively (we) handled it pretty well for the most part of the day. I think it’s awesome and needed for your entire program, all the little things that go one during the course of a game like, so it was good work. (It was) back and forth – all phases of the game – offense and defense throughout the course of the day. A lot of really good things that we saw out there.”
On the offense and quarterbacks’ performance while dealing with the bad weather…
“There really weren’t a ton of turnovers last week. The weather really had very little effect, for the most part. I thought the quarterbacks handled the weather (and) were able the throw the ball efficiently and effectively. I thought our wide receivers did a pretty good job. (We) didn’t have any center-quarterback issues. It was really pretty good.
“I thought special teams early in the day weren’t handling it as well as they could of. We put them in some tough situations throughout the course of the day, in particular our field goal unit. Those guys handled it really well at the end of the day.”
On scrimmaging in the rain and deciding on a starting quarterback…
“Game day, you wake up (and) no matter what the weather report has said throughout the course of the week, you’ve got to play in the elements that you’ve got. We will play in a rain game, so your mindset – offense, defense, special teams – has to be that this is the right weather for us to go out and execute. It has no bearing on who we are and what we do and how we do it. I thought we really functioned at a pretty high level on that side of the football. Now, I got to continue to see those guys compete, obviously, we’ll go back later today and have an opportunity to watch the scrimmage. I think those guys have all continued to grow during the course of this three-day block before we got into our scrimmage today.”
On the defense playing physical and what he say from that side today…
“Yeah, at times I thought they created negative plays and played up the field. I thought for the most part with gap integrity on the first, second and third level was really strong. At the same time, I felt like offensively they were able to bust them and create some space at times and move the football on the ground, as well. I thought the running backs as a whole ran with great pad level today and moved and finished plus two.”
On the progression of Juwan Mitchell and Jeremy Banks as defensive leaders…
“You get a chance to see more of it when you go back and watch the video. I think there is great competition in that room, the accountability factor, and who they are going to be every day. We’ve continued to evolve from where we finished spring ball, throughout the course of the summer, and certainly here during training camp. There’s a lot of guys who can play and can play at a really high level in that second level, that linebacker group. I think the strength of any position can never be one guy, you guys have heard me say that before. We’ve got the ability to play a lot of bodies on that second level throughout training camp, but especially during the scrimmage, and you’ve seen most guys play with great effort, great strain, speed that has shown up on the video. We’ve shown our guys a lot of that during the course of our team meetings.”
On the performance of the offensive line…
“I thought they were more efficient from the whistle to getting lined up and getting ready for the next snap. I thought they created good vertical movement at times over the course of the scrimmage and did a good job of protecting the quarterback.”
On the separation of quarterbacks thus far…
“When we see separation (and) we are ready to say something, I’ll come back here and do that. That group has continued to compete and handle things the right way, and I like the growth of that group from day-to-day. You just look from the first scrimmage to the second scrimmage who they are and over the course of the practices leading up to today, that group is continuing to trend in the right direction.”
On offensive lineman Darnell Wright…
“Athleticism, he’s got a tremendous upside. He’s only going to continue to get better, and I think his purpose and the way he has practiced throughout training camp has been more focused and intentional in the way he takes every single rep. He has become a much better student of the game, understanding defensive alignments, what we are doing offensively. He is a better communicator than he was during the course of spring ball.”
On how he evaluates the scrimmage…
“It’s about guys that you trust at this point that are going to go out and compete the way that you want them too and I’m just talking about effort. Then the ability to reset play to play, guys who understand their alignments, assignments and can communicate out there on the football field. It’s never just about 11 guys. It’s about as many guys that are going to prove they can play at a high enough level to go win and finding roles for those guys – and that’s offense, defense and special teams. Today is probably our last major scrimmage, but it’s not the last piece of their development before we go out and play. We’ve got to continue to push as we lead up to kickoff.”
On how much better he feels about how many people he can trust now compared to months ago…
“I think there’s been tremendous growth of the football team. You look at where we finished spring ball, and then the guys who got back from injury, the guys that were brought in through the transfer portal, the development of some of our young guys—we’re a much deeper football team then we were. That shows up on offense and defense and it shows up in your ability to play on special teams, too. Our young guys are continuing to take strides that make you feel like they have an opportunity to go out there and play at a high level.”
On how he’s able to judge who’s winning between offensive and defensive line in practice…
“It’s certainly different when you get to game day against somebody that hasn’t seen you and hasn’t gone against you for close to 26 or 27 practices at this point if you look back to spring ball. The way that we rotate though, you see different matchups. So, the rotation on the offensive line with guys swinging from left to right, whatever it might be, that versatility, you see guys in different positions against a different individual over the course of a practice. As a football coach though, you understand the fundamentals and the techniques of what you’re trying to do, and we’ve seen really good growth on both sides of the line of scrimmage.”
On if he saw an improvement in cutting down penalties in the team’s second scrimmage…
“There are certain things we have to get corrected. There are a couple things that happened pre-snap that we can certainly correct. Throughout training camp though, we’ve been relatively clean there. We have officials out there every single day that are calling it like a game, and we point that out to our players every single day. They’re taking ownership in it. No, we’re never where we want to be, but we have a lot of positives there.”
On the defense being aggressive…
“There were times during the scrimmage where they got people behind the chains and created some zero or negative yard plays, they got after the quarterback. It’s always tough in a scrimmage when your quarterbacks aren’t live. Does he have him? Does he not have him? What’s the elusiveness of that player? But I thought they did a good job, particularly early in the first couple drives, they got off the field in some third-down situations in ones and twos. Offensively, there was some give and take, and it got going as the scrimmage went on. If you walk out of a scrimmage and it’s completely one-sided, that’s where you feel like as a coach that there’s some major concern. If there’s some give and take, you feel like you’re going on both sides of it and there was some of that today.”
On if he was pleased with the tackling during Tuesday’s scrimmage…
“Yes, for the most part. I thought there were a couple of plays in space where our skill guys were able to make some plays. Our guys on the defensive side of the football have been really solid throughout the course of training camp. Getting to a football game on Sept. 2, that’s when we really find out. There has been a ton of growth in that way. There have been some things we’ve done in our practices to try and emphasize that early in the course of practice. I feel like from day-to-day, drill-to-drill, scrimmage-to-scrimmage, we’re continuing to make some improvements.”
On if he believes the defense finished Tuesday’s scrimmage better than last week…
“You’ll find out individually and collectively if they finished better. There were some long drives out there during the course of play today. I thought, for the most part though, our guys competed on both sides of the line of scrimmage.”
On if he calls the offensive plays and how the rest of the voices of the coaching staff help put the offense together…
“The voices inside the room, it’s a growth. You find out who your personnel are. You have a way that you want to play, then you find out your personnel and then you try to put those guys in situations to be successful. We’ve got a lot of guys that have a ton of experience—guys that have been with me for a long time. Coach (Alex) Golesh came with me from the previous stop. Kodi Burns has a ton of experience in this league, having played in his league and he coached in it for a long time. You try to find out your personnel and put them in positions for success. Yes, there’s a base of who we are and our core fundamentals, how we play and certainly inside of our playbook. Then, you constantly evolve. Some of that happens during the course of training camp, but some of that happens as you go through the season and continue to find out more about your players and how you want to attack defenses. It’s a constant evolution of who and what we’re going to be.”
-UT Athletics
