Heupel Discusses Tennessee's First Spring Scrimmage

Heupel Discusses Tennessee's First Spring Scrimmage

Tennessee returned to the practice field for its first scrimmage setting on Thursday evening. The Vols played at full-speed, full-contact for roughly 85% of the outing, according to Josh Heupel, and finished with some thuds near the end to preserve guys and prevent injury. 

Following the event, Heupel met with the media for roughly 20 minutes, and he went in-depth about what he saw on the field today. 

"Guys had a ton of energy and made a bunch of plays on both sides of the football," Heupel said after the scrimmage. "I thought, defensively, we started extremely fast, played with energy, got off the field, and played assignment-sound, particularly early. Offensively, as the scrimmage went on, thought we did a great jolive-actiong into a rhythm, creating some big plays and operated really efficiently with our tempo, our ball mechanics."

One key topic of discussion, obviously, was the quarterback position, which Heupel evaluates as well as anyone else. 

"I thought the quarterbacks did a good job of handling all those things really well throughout the day, played error-free for the most part," Heupel stated. "We'll want to correct some things as far as decision-making inside the pocket, but took care of the football. Really good day for us as far as our first scrimmage, first live action. Guys are going to learn a ton from this, and looking forward to moving on here as we get with them here later this weekend."

"I thought all three of them did a good job of managing the game. Communication was good, not great. We can be better in that area. I thought they pushed the tempo, were pretty sound in their decision-making in the passing game; all three of them took care of the football and allowed us to move the football at times as well."

From an entire team standpoint, Heupel's staff got their first live-action look at their team and checked off some things they wanted to see from them. 

"There's a bunch of things that you're trying to get your football team to do," Heupel said during the media availability. "At the end of the day, when you get inside of the stadium, and you get an opportunity to put guys on the sideline, they've got to line up, get the signal, play the play, learn how to reset, go play the next play. You're trying to teach them what the game of football looks like in a real live setting with officials, ball mechanics, all those things, and trying to grow as a football team.

"We try to simulate a lot of that during the course of practice. There's nothing like being inside of the stadium and it being for real, coaches off on the sideline and letting those guys play. Lots of positive things from today."

As always, when you line up to compete, there is a winner and loser, but Josh Heupel wasn't tipping his hand one way or the other. 

"Who won, who lost, man, I don't have the scoreboard on that side of it from today," Heupel said about the day's event. "I know there were a bunch of plays that were made by both sides of the football with each group. There were some things that were glaring that we've got to get corrected. We're learning how to have winning habits inside of our program. We're getting rid of a bunch of habits that aren't going to help us win."

Overall, it sounds like Heupel liked what he saw from his team in their first competitive opportunity.

"The thing that I love about this group is that they listen, they're attentive and they are working to become what they're capable of, the challenge and the race against yourself to become as good as you can as fast as you. These guys have accepted that in a really positive way and are starting to demand it from the guy next to them and inside of the locker room. That accountability's got to come from within, and our group is starting to learn that and take ownership of it."