Tennessee football hit the practice field for the first time in fall camp on Wednesday morning, with head coach Josh Heupel meeting with the media afterward.
This gave us a glance at what the Vols will look like this upcoming season and a chance to pick Heupel’s mind about where things currently stand.
Here are the three biggest things that stood out to me.
More From RTI: Everything Tennessee HC Josh Heupel Said Following The Vols’ First Fall Practice
First Look at the QB Battle
While it was a limited look at the quarterbacks and everything we saw was against air, we did get our first chance to see what Tennessee’s trio of signal callers bring to the table. I think the consensus opinion is that nobody jumped off the page as a clear frontrunner during this period, though.
All three, Joey Aguilar, Jake Merklinger and George MacIntyre, made their fair share of good throws, but also threw incompletions and inaccurate balls.
While there isn’t too much time, as kickoff against Syracuse is just a month away, it’s still expected for there to be a stretch where rust is going to have to be knocked off. Heupel just wants to see the group continue to take steps forward and not repeat mistakes.
“Constant growth. Don’t make the same mistake twice,” Heupel said. “Learn from the other guys that are at the position group. I think that’s important for everybody. No matter what position you’re playing, there’s not enough reps for everybody to get every single look, every single install. So you got to continue to learn from everything. That’s all on the field. And during the course of practice, quarterbacks mastering what we’re doing offensively, that’s controlling run game, pass game, the checks that we have in and all forms of it. There’s a lot that’s on their plate. So communication, then your fundamentals, which is preceded by your eyes, and then deliver an accurate ball. So all those things are going to go into it.”
Josh Heupel is Giving Just as Much Attention to the Defense
For the majority of the practice periods open to the media, Heupel wasn’t with the quarterbacks. Instead, the coach known for his offense was with the defense.
Particularly, Heupel spent a good portion with defensive coordinator Tim Banks, who was analyzing the secondary.
Heupel does this intentionally. He doesn’t want to pigeonhole himself with quarterbacks just because that was the position he used to play. He wants to spread out across the practice field and hit all the groups.
“I think it’s important that your defensive guys see you. Same with special teams,” Heupel said. “So I try, during training camp, I’m in those special teams meetings. But supporting your defensive guys, they see you, too. S,o depending on the day, what the flow of practice is, what we have going on on offense early in the day, try to get over there (on defense) and then try to go through some pass rush as well at times.”
New Staff Hires Making Impacts
Heupel brought in a few new pieces to his coaching staff this year. This includes Seth Littrell and Landry Jones, who both also played at Oklahoma.
In the case of Littrell, Heupel is benefiting from getting a new perspective. He was previously the head coach at North Texas, giving him experience to help out as Heupel is only able to be in one place at once.
“Well, guys that have been head coaches (Littrell) are certainly a help to me,” Heupel said. “And I say that, they got a different perspective. Just bring them in to get a chance to hear something for the first time. Maybe a subtle tweak to how you’re doing it or how you’re communicating something has a chance to, inch by inch, get you a little bit better.”
Landry is a younger coach who is just now entering his coaching career after hanging up the cleats. His familiarity with what Heupel wants to do at the quarterback position and with other members of the staff can also go a long way. Particularly for a roster that has uncertainty at quarterback at the moment, this could prove to be extremely helpful.
“You mentioned specifically Landry, his familiarity with some of our staff, some of the things that we do, his experience, NFL fundamentals, technique, how to prepare during the course of game week, with the lead up to where we are today in constant growth,” Heupel said. “He was a pro because of who he was and how he handled himself every single day and the process that he went through, or the journey that he went through as a player to become that. I think those are all extremely valuable lessons to all the guys that we have inside of that room.”
