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HomeSportsTennessee Vols Football shows improvement during Saturday's Scrimmage

Tennessee Vols Football shows improvement during Saturday’s Scrimmage

UT Athletics

Tennessee Volunteers - UT VolsKnoxville, TN – The Tennessee Vols Football team held its 14th practice of the season and conducted its second scrimmage of the fall camp on Saturday afternoon at Neyland Stadium, getting in 131 total plays between regular scrimmage work as well as situational, red zone and goal line work.
 
“To start the scrimmage, I really felt like the offensive line kind of dominated the scrimmage with the ones and the twos, even the threes,” said head coach Jeremy Pruitt. “I thought they did a good job.

Tennessee Vols Football held their second scrimmage this season Saturday. (UT Athletics)
Tennessee Vols Football held their second scrimmage this season Saturday. (UT Athletics)

“We changed some situations up. We had some guys who were banged up. Some guys pushed through, but we held some others out just to be precautionary”, Pruitt stated.

“Playing as many quarterbacks as we played today was probably not fair to the offense. It’s hard for a quarterback who goes out and plays eight snaps to get in a good rhythm,” said Pruitt.

Freshmen Coming Along

The younger Vols got plenty of opportunities to display their talents on Saturday, and Pruitt feels like the freshman are developing pretty well.
 
“Most freshmen, no matter where they go to school, you can sit there and meet with them all summer, you can meet with them in fall camp, and when you start talking about pace of practice and the competition on the field, it gets overwhelming,” said Pruitt.
 
“That’s why you see very few freshmen that come out and start the first game. Our guys are developing, all of them — on offense, defense, Paxton Brooks at punter, they’re all developing and improving every day. So I think that the more knowledge they get about what they’re supposed to do and watch guys do it the right way, it gives them an idea. So we’re happy with the direction that all of the guys are headed.”

Pruitt Sees Competitive Nature in Jahmir Johnson

“Jahmir is a really good competitor. He has good balance, body control and plays for power. He’s not an overly big guy, but he has some power in his body. He can play probably all five spots on the offensive line. Again, this is new for him, he’s coming from junior college and only played one of two years in high school, so he’s learning the way we practice. He’s really improved in the last five or six days, so we think that he has a bright future.”

Pruitt Stresses Importance of Tackling

When asked about how happy he was with the overall tackling during this week’s scrimmage compared to last week’s, Coach Pruitt expressed his high standards for the Big Orange defense.
 
“Unless we make every tackle I’m never going to be happy with how we tackle,” said Pruitt. “And sometimes getting them on the ground might not be tackling the right way or playing with the right technique.”
 
“We have a long ways to go to be able to tackle the way that we want to be able to when it comes to fundamentals and technique our guys are working hard to improve on it, and I can see them getting better at it, and I see confidence in them, but we still have a long ways to go.”

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