Tennessee football returned to the practice Haslam Field Thursday morning for its second practice of the fall on an overcast and slightly foggy morning in Knoxville.
Five periods of practice were open to the media so we watched approximately 30 minutes of practice. But none of that time was stretching so we got a bit more action packed.
With that, it’s on to the notes and observations from Tennessee football’s second fall practice.
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Offense
The one downside to not watching stretches is that it was a bit harder to figure out who was absent and who was present. Miles Kitselman remained in a red non contact jersey while Chris Brazzell was not present at the parts of practice open to the media.
We watched a good bit of routes on air work between the quarterbacks and receivers as well as with the quarterbacks and the running backs. While Merklinger had the best day Wednesday to open camp, the redshirt freshman signal caller struggled Thursday, completing 13-of-18 total passes while we were watching. There was one bad drop in there but Merklinger was mostly inaccurate.
Joey Aguilar had a really nice day Thursday, completing 16 of his 17 pass attempts with the lone incompletion being a dropped pass from a running back that was accurate. George MacIntyre had a better day than he did Monday too, completing 13-of-15 pass attempts.
There was still a lot of underneath passes but some interesting changes too. The quarterbacks worked on play action rollouts, seemingly out of the pistol, and threw deep out routes. Merklinger especially struggled in this session. But the fact that was a throw Tennessee’s quarterbacks were working on was interesting.
Freshman receiver Travis Smith Jr continues to look really good though he did have one bad drop. Walk-on Trey Weary has been working in Chris Brazzell’s place during routes on air, but Smith would be my candidate as the third outside receiver at this moment.
I got a little bit closer look at Tennessee’s running backs today and was impressed by Peyton Lewis. He has really slimmed up a bit over the offseason as he enters a year with abundant opportunity.
Defense
All I got on the injury front here is Jermod McCoy working off to the side as well as Boo Carter who was not wearing a helmet and appeared to have a weighted vest on.
Caught a tough stretch for sophomore defensive back Marcus Goree Jr. who did pushups after dropping a pass, had to do a drill twice after messing up the footwork and then proceeded to knock a cone on the final rep.
I noted it yesterday but I saw it up close and personnel today— sophomore defensive back Kaleb Beasley looks way bigger. I was skeptical about him playing safety this season but after seeing him in person I now believe he is big enough. Beasley and Edrees Farooq is one of the position battles I’m most intrigued by early in camp.
Beasley was also giving some pointers to freshman defensive back Sidney Walton between reps during Thursday’s practice.
Spent a good portion of the open practice watching the linebackers and Jordan Burns seems to have added some serious muscle. He was a bit slimmer and a third down package guy last season but looks like a guy who could win that fourth linebacker spot this season.
Jaedon Harmon and Jadon Perlotte both look good for freshman but they are still freshmen. Inside linebackers coach William Inge was getting after Harmon for not being ready to go on a specific drill rep. Tennessee’s linebackers did a drill where they shed blocks on a sled and then more interestingly, they put on boxing gloves to practice punching the ball out.
Didn’t spend any time watching the defensive linemen so no notes there today. Tennessee is off Friday but I’ll look to watch them on Saturday.
