Tennessee football returned to the Haslam Practice Field on an overcast Wednesday morning following a night of rain in Knoxville. It was the Vols’ first practice in full pads during fall camp.
Only three periods of practice, about 15-20 minutes, were open to the media Sunday morning so there’s only so many observations to glean from the action. With that, it’s on to the notes and observations from Tennessee football’s fourth fall practice.
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Offense
Let’s start with injury notes. Mike Matthews was in a red non contact jersey along with tight end Miles Kitselman. Both players went through routes on air. Braylon Staley was off to the side while the team was stretching and did not participate in the routes on air portion of practice.
Was unable to spot Chris Brazzell and the same was the case for reserve offensive lineman Brian Grant who missed Tuesday’s practice.
On to routes on air, and it was a more entertaining one today. We watched two full periods instead of our usual one and Tennessee’s quarterbacks were starting to throw the ball down the field more. They threw a ton of intermediate passes from 10-20 yards while also taking a few deep shots at the end of the open period.
It was an overall productive day. There were a few drops but mostly from players well down the depth chart. There were some more incompletions but some of that is the nature of the length of the passes.
I missed a couple reps on the far side of the field as we were walking from the indoor facility to the offensive practice field outside but here are my unofficial completion numbers for the day. Jake Merklinger was 11-for-13. Joey Aguilar was 13-for-16 and George MacIntyre was nine-for-12. MacIntyre was also the victim of a pair of bad drops.
Merklinger was stellar on most of the intermediate stuff. Consistent throws right in stride including some good ones to Mike Matthews. The redshirt freshman was just two-for-four on the four deep balls he threw. Amari Jefferson had a bad drop on a ball down the seam but on the reverse side, Merklinger under threw Radarious Jackson. The freshman receiver made the catch on routes on air but it was unlikely to be a catch in a game.
On the other side, Aguilar was a little more inconsistent on the intermediate passing but it’s easy to see why people are speak highly of his deep ball. He completed two of the three attempts I saw and I think Ethan David ran his route down the seem wrong on the one incompletion. At least a coach was barking at Davis after the play. Aguilar also threw a beautiful deep ball to Travis Smith Jr right in stride.
We only saw one MacIntyre deep ball but it was a beautiful one down the left sideline for a completion. And for those tracking, Merklinger had the GoPro back on today after Aguilar wore it each of the last two days.
Noted what appeared to be a first team offensive line working together Wednesday and it was (left to right) Lance Heard, Wendell Moe, William Satterwhite, Jesse Perry and David Sanders. Offensive line coach Glen Elarbee raved about Perry Tuesday but that was still a surprise to see him in that group.
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Defense
Let’s start with the injury notes. The status of Jermod McCoy and Christian Gass remained the same with the two stretching off to the side. I never spotted Rickey Gibson or Josh Josephs on the practice field but I believe I spotted both of them in the weight room riding the stationary bike.
Josephs has missed the last handful of practices while Gibson is missing his second straight practice to open up the second week of camp.
Just like yesterday, Tennessee started its drill portion with some special teams work but today it was some basic kick off coverage work.
With Josephs sidelined, Caleb Herring, Emmanuel Okoye, Mike Bethea, Kellen Lindstrom and Jordan Ross worked at LEO. Boo Carter, Jalen McMurray and William Wright were working at the STAR spot. Felt notable that McMurray was working at STAR during the open portion of practice even with Gibson sidelined.
Lastly, Edrees Farooq was getting a good bit of run beside Andre Turrentine at safety in portions of practice open to the media.
