Tennessee football returned to Haslam Practice Field Friday morning after Wednesday’s scrimmage and Thursday’s off day. The Vols wore full pads as the camp portion of practice begins to wind down. In fact, Friday was the last practice that will have any media availability until after the regular season.
The media got to watch the first three period of practice, roughly 20 minutes, so as always there’s only so many takeaways to gather.
With that, here’s our notes and observations from practice the Vols’ 13th fall practice.
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Offense
Let’s start with injury notes, per usual. Cooper Mays was absent as expected as he continues to work back from a preseason procedure. He wasn’t the only Tennessee offensive lineman limited as junior college transfer Larry Johnson III was out on the practice field but wasn’t dressed out.
Redshirt sophomore receiver Jackson Locke was also warming up but wasn’t in full pads or a helmet. The last offensive injury note is that Dylan Sampson was fully dressed out but stayed inside to work off to the side with the rest of the banged up players.
Sampson was originally scheduled to talk to the media today but is no longer going to do to the minor injury. A Tennessee spokesperson said they plan for him to talk to the media sometime next week.
Along the offensive line the rotation was the same of what we’ve seen since Mays went down with an injury. The first team offensive line we saw working together in drills was, left to right, John Campbell, Andrej Karic, Ollie Lane, Javontez Spraggins and Jeremiah Crawford.
With Sampson not going through drills with running backs, there were more reps for Khalifa Keith and Cameron Seldon. The running backs worked on some short route running while catching passes from assistant coaches.
It was a strong routes on air portion of practice from Tennessee’s quarterbacks, receivers and tight ends. While there have frequently been absences from receivers during routes on air there weren’t any today.
Ramel Keyton, Dont’e Thornton and Bru McCoy worked with the first team and caught passes from Joe Milton III while Kaleb Webb, Squirrel White, Chas Nimrod and Nathan Leacock caught passes from Nico Iamaleava.
I didn’t see any incompletions from Milton as he was consistently on time and on target. The Vols worked on deep routes and Milton was money on a pair of throws to McCoy and Thornton. He slightly under threw Keyton on a deep ball but the senior receiver slowed down and hauled it in.
Defense
There was only otwo complete defensive absences that I noticed Friday. Cornerback Kamal Hadden and defensive tackle Elijah Simmons were’t out on the practice field while we were out there. There were a handful of defenders that stayed inside and worked off to the side once the rest of the team made their way to the Haslam Practice Field too. Those players were Jourdan Thomas, Omarr Norman-Lott and Christian Charles. All three were fully dressed out.
Two players who have spent a lot of time working off to the side but were full participants during Friday’s practice are defensive backs Wesley Walker and Tamarion McDonald.
One note along the defensive line is that Daevin Hobbs was drilling with defensive tackles. He’s spent a lot of fall camp working at strong-side defensive end. He obviously could have moved back after we left practice but it was an interesting note.
In a shocking development (sarcasm), Mike Ekeler was extremely high energy working his outside linebackers and the players in that room seemingly reciprocated the high energy from their coach.
Willie Martinez worked with the cornerbacks and the group did donut tackling. Tennessee is extremely deep at corner but questions remain about whether or not they can get separation and a higher level of play at that spot.
Maybe no group has stayed more healthy this fall than Tennessee’s linebackers. Brian-Jean Mary was getting after his guys as they worked on gap assignments.
