- The eyeball test is good —
Everyone summer every player on every team and some coaches speak about how it’s the best summer ever. I’m not saying it’s Tennessee’s best summer ever but there are guys on this team that look different.
Tennessee’s strength staff is an under the radar group. They haven’t done interviews. They aren’t highly visible, but they have been highly productive with this group. Does it mean wins? Who knows. What it does mean is more players look he part and that’s the first step.
2. They definitely will help — Tennessee added two players at all three levels of the defense. They added Javonta Payton on offense. It’s less than a week in and there’s been no real contact work and no scrimmages yet, but many of the transfers look like they are going to make a big impact. Juwan Mitchell should be a starter at linebacker. Da’Jon Terry and Caleb Tremblay will be in the regular rotation on the defensive line. In the secondary, Brandon Turnage has impressed with several plays in four days and Turnage is not in great shape having not done much prior to his arrival in July.
Payton has been smooth at receiver with good body control and solid hands. If he can stay healthy, he will be productive in Josh Heupel’s offense.
3. Countdown is on --
The quarterback battle is at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Everywhere you go it’s the question. The answer will start to take shape this week. To this point it’s just been a regular rotation with no pecking order. Day one the rotation was lowest numeral jersey got work first, day two they started with the highest numeral jersey.
This week, Tennessee has their first scrimmage and separation will start to take place as the coaching staff made it clear in week one they want to pair it down quickly.
“To me, there's a huge sense of urgency,” offensive coordinator Alex Golesh said. “You want to start gearing and shaping the offense towards who that guy is and having a plan for who the next one is. Because you obviously have to prepare, you have a plan A and then you got to have a plan B and this time, this COVID thing is still real, so you have to have a plan C. Maybe a plan D even. So, I would like to get a pecking order as fast as we can. We're going to give all of those guys a really honest fair shake at this thing early. And then the pressure is on to at least get your top two to a point where you can start to split those reps. We'll have a really good idea. Like I said, a week or week and a half is my goal, to at least have a top two, maybe three, narrowed down to a top two. And the neat thing for me as the offensive coordinator is coach Heupel has been through it and done it. I really lean super, super heavy on him in that regard to help with that part of it. Joey Halzle has been right at his side for a really long time with it. We talk about it daily, just like you guys talk about it daily. But for me, for us as an offense, I think the faster it happens when it gets announced and all that, I think that would be obviously up to coach Heupel, and if I had it my way, nobody would know until we rolled out on Sept. 2.”
4. It’s all about the process — No that’s not a Nick Saban or Saban pupil quote about the organization. Process is the key word for the quarterbacks and a huge key to winning the quarterback derby. How well can a guy process calls between plays and get the offense organized and how well they process once the ball is snapped.
“We play fast, we force the defense to play fast, so a lot of times guys want to be in the exact right spot on the other side of the ball. Can you process what you're seeing and get your eyes and your body in position to make the throw that we need every single time? The ability to process quickly is as big as anything that we have physically that we need,” quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle stated.
Biggest test of that process comes Thursday when Tennessee holds their first scrimmage.
5. I wouldn’t call it swagger, but there’s confidence —
There’s a positive vibe about this team. Heupel and his staff has done a good job this off-season working on building their culture and this team has bought in.
“It’s a totally different vibe in this building,” sophomore Tyler Baron said. “I tell everybody coming from our season last year to this year you almost can’t call it the same program. It’s a totally different mindset. People are taking more advantage of things.
“The biggest thing for me is the mindset. Everyone in the building is looking to improve more so than just getting through. All the new guys are buying into the program. Coach Heupel is leading us in the right direction and we are just following him.”
The approach is different as fans saw in the mic’ed up segment with Heupel.
The other difference is that things are normal right now. Players can eat together. They can hang out together outside of practice and this team enjoys being around each other.
“It’s been really good,” Cade Mays said. “We enjoy a lot of team activities and getting to spend time with the coaches and my teammates has been good.
“It was lacking because of COVID. There was so much unknown with the virus. No one wanted to catch it. It was scary. A lot of guys just sat inside and didn’t want to go out and do stuff together.”
