Tennessee has some key players either resting or rehabbing at this point, which has opened the door for some new faces to get valuable reps. Injury situations on the offensive line and at running back will shake things up next weekend, with guys like Vysen Lang and Desean Bishop playing key roles in the offense.
“It was a lot of fun tonight,” Josh Heupel said of the scrimmage. “Just the way the schedule unfolded, decided to do a night scrimmage. Great to be under the lights inside of Neyland. Guys had a ton of energy and a lot of really good work. And defensively I thought they started extremely fast, violent, disruptive. Got off the field on third downs. Did a great job offensively, settled in in the second half of the scrimmage. So a lot of good work here for just being over the midpoint of spring ball.”
On the defensive front
“Our defensive line has brought great energy and consistency every single day that we’ve been on the practice field. Veteran group, especially on the interior, that has kind of led the way. Our edge group continues to get better and the young guys and new guys have really grown inside of it really quickly and they’re playing with great pad level. They’re using their hands better than they ever have and I’m not just talking in pass rushing, in the run game too. So really like what that group’s done.”
On the young offensive linemen
“(Vysen) Lang is continuing to grow. Strong kid continuing to grow in the communication side of it with his hand on the ball. (William) Satterwhite, Max Anderson’s taking some snaps. All those guys, they’re getting thrown into to, they’re thrusted into it and they’ve handled it really well. And when I say that, they handle coming back from a bad play, a bad series and reset into the next one too. So a lot of growth left for that group. But they pushed extremely hard and they did that before we got the spring ball.”
