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Vols First Spring Scrimmage In The Books:
Saturday was the first time Jeremy Pruitt saw his Tennessee team in a game-like setting in Neyland Stadium.
The results were what you would expect from a team coming off a 4-8 season and learning a new offense and defense. The scrimmage was closed to the media, but I’ve managed to learn a few things from sources who saw the 120-play practice.
— Jarrett Guarantano was less than impressive, but his offensive line did him no favors. This team needs Trey Smith, Chance Hall and anyone else who can play up front back in a hurry. You can manufacture an offense with either a poor quarterback or bad offensive line, but you can’t do much when both are below average. Tyson Helton has his hands full if Saturday was any indication.
— Ty Chandler showed flashes at times, which was something he did last season when he spelled John Kelly. Chandler is one of the better players on the roster, and if he can be a 20+ touches guy this fall, it would go a long ways.
— Alontae Taylor continues to impress at wide-out. Taylor has a great work ethic and has shown ability to make plays and pick up yards after the catch. He’ll be a big factor at wide receiver this fall.
— The defensive line had a good scrimmage, but this was more attributed to poor offensive line play. Shy Tuttle is adjusting to the nose tackle position well. Hopefully he can stay healthy this year because there’s not much behind him.
— The secondary struggled, especially the cornerbacks, which is no surprise as Pruitt and Co. are still looking to find quality cover guys.
— The first team punt coverage unit gave up a 75-yard return for a touchdown to the scout team.
Pruitt Quotes:
First thoughts after scrimmage: “One thing that just jumps out to me is we gotta be a much better tackling team. Guys need a little bit better form to finish. On the offensive line, we need to learn how to finish, at wide receiver, any time the ball is out on the perimeter. The one thing I didn’t see today, I didn’t see our offensive players or our O-linemen going and peppering the defensive players, knocking them off the ball carrier. At the same time, not a lot of turnovers which is good for the offense, but didn’t get a lot for the defense. One thing we need to do is we need to be opportunistic. If we get a chance to finish on a ball then we gotta be able to finish, at the same time we gotta take care of it on offense.”
On poor tackling: “I think the easiest thing is, if you’re gonna be a great tackling team, you gotta get your feet in position for contact. The most important thing to me when it comes to tackling is your feet, because you gotta be able to get them in the right position, you gotta keep them underneath your shoulder pads, you can’t stop them. A lot of people have bad habits when they tackle guys in the open field, they want to go up there and stop and squat their feet. You can’t change direction, so you gotta be able to squat down and open your hips and keep your eyes and chest up.”
On bad body language: “I could’ve turned my head when the ball was being snapped and not watched the play, and then look back around, and I could’ve told you what happened without looking at the down and distance, all based off body language. That’s not a good thing. There’s going to be adverse situations in the games, there’s gonna be situations where things don’t go our way. How are we gonna play, how are we gonna respond?”
On penalties: “There were way too many penalties on both sides. They were all pre-snap penalties. It was lack of discipline. It was lack of poise—just being able to get lined up and function. We definitely got to improve there, and the interesting part is: when does it happen? Not a whole lot of penalties at the beginning of the scrimmage, but toward the end, where you start trying to figure out who has the mental toughness and can sustain, that is when the penalties show up. That definitely has to be addressed.”
Play-calling or schemes in the scrimmage: “I didn’t call any plays on either side of the ball, so I think our guys kept it simple. The big deal is, you’re going to have some guys that learning comes a little easier to, and some guys that maybe have more experience and pick things up faster. To me, today’s about trying to figure out who the best players are. Who can block, who can tackle, who can catch, who can run? Who has a positive effect on their teammate? To me, that’s what today was about. It wasn’t about trying to figure out who knows the most offense or who know the most defense. So to do that you need to keep it simple so the guys can go execute and play and we can get a true evaluation of who the best guys are.”
On physical play? “When the ball is snapped you can usually hear a pop. Well we don’t hardly have the pop yet. So we have to get a little more pop.”
I'll be on to talk about this with Tony today.
Matt Dixon'
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