Some notes and observations from the open portion of practice on Tuesday afternoon at Haslam Field.
Timing is everything: In one of just two periods open to the media for reporting on Tuesday, the emphasis for the offense was on the passing game, in particular timing between the quarterbacks, tight ends and wide receivers.
The object of the drill was to get the ball out quickly and then have the rest of the receivers work on their timing blocking down the field. Here’s a clip of a bigger and faster looking Ethan Wolf taking a short throw and turning it up the field:
Ethan Wolf getting some work in pic.twitter.com/ZhoGGMKbjd
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) April 11, 2017
This drill also provided maybe the funniest moment of spring practice when Jauan Jennings took a short throw, ran over a manger and then went down to the end zone and celebrated.
Jauan Jennings plows over a student manager today at practice.
Maybe he thought it was Jalen Tabor. pic.twitter.com/x3XOOb44dD
— Rocky Top Insider (@rockytopinsider) April 11, 2017
Offensive coordinator Larry Scott led most of the drill, and was very vocal throughout it. Butch Jones, however, was also overseeing it and stepped in at one point to make a point to the receivers about proper hand placement on blocks.
Quarterback thoughts: There’s very little to report on the quarterback front from the open portion of practice. The signal callers worked on taking snaps and steps with quarterbacks coach Mike Canales, who put them through various drills to work on their reaction time.
They then headed over to do a drill where they ran through a gauntlet of blocking pads. While the other QBs were doing that, walk-on Zac Jancek handled most of the throws in that short-passing drill, though Quinten Dormady came over and handled a few of them as the open portion wrapped up.
Other notes:
• I spent some time watching John Kelly work on catching passes, and that’s really an overlooked area of his game. He’s about as fluid as some of the wide receivers in those drills.
• We’re not allowed to report on specific injuries, but there’s a noticeable thinning of the herd at practice that’s occurred over the past few weeks. Quarterback and running backs are really two of the only positions that seem to have most of the key players going full speed at every practice.
• Trey Smith and Quay Picou are among the players speaking to the media following practice. Tennessee now has 10 practices in the books with sessions coming up on Thursday, Saturday, next Tuesday and next Thursday before the Orange and White Game on April 22.
