Tennessee football held its second scrimmage of the fall with just over two weeks until kick-off of the 2024 regular season.

After the Vols took to Neyland Stadium, head coach Josh Heupel met with the media.

Here's what he had to say.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

Good afternoon. Great to get back inside of Neyland, scrimmage again. All in all, thought the scrimmage went really well, offense, defense. Got good-on-good work, on special teams, too. Trying to continue to find the right guys on those units. Got the chance to work some situational football. Worked some crowd noise, as well, like it was a road game. Thought the day went really well.

I thought just from operations side of it, I'm just talking sideline communication, again, tried to take TV timeouts. Be intentional, working iPad usage. Finished with a mock halftime for the coaches and players. Just organizationally, I thought it was really clean. Played clean football. Had a crew out at the scrimmage and didn't have really many penalties at all during the course of it so really like that. And then both sides of the football, guys made some plays.

End of the day, I think as a coaching staff, you're always trying to balance that in your rep count, your loads that your player are under from day-to-day. You need the physical work, and I'm talking about the physicality portion of it, but at the same time, you understand what's coming down the pipe here and getting ready to play. You're always trying to balance that in what you're doing.

Dont'e is doing a really nice job here during the training camp. Taking more of a load here over the last few days. Really like what we've seen from him, his comfort inside what we're doing offensively.

Mentioned a couple of the offensive linemen, thought they did a really nice job today. Obviously, going to go back and watch the film. Again, as you're building towards kickoff, all the guys that are going to be playing, you want to continue to sharpen those guys up and those two guys are going to continue to get better.

For all of your quarterbacks, the green dot communication is different. Situational football, being able to reset and play the play. We tried to simulate a lot of our situations during the course of practice but there's nothing like a scrimmage that gets you as close as you can be to what game day is going to be like. In general, I thought the quarterbacks handled themselves really well here and again, situational football, being backed up coming off the goal line, your thought process, all of those things.

Great competition at those positions. Kick-off guy, punter, your point scorers, your snappers. We've been charting everything. They're still in a real competition here as we get to the end of training camp some of those decisions will be made.

I've said it from the beginning of the off-season to our coaches and players, it can't just be one guy at one position. We're going to have to play multiple guys. It's just the nature of being in this league and the game we play. I really do like the length, athleticism. I feel like this last block since our last scrimmage, they've continued to be better as far as their fundamentals, technique, assignment, discipline just within the structure of the defense. We got to continue to get better, good teams do. That's during the course of the season, it's here as we finish up training camp but really like what I'm seeing from that group.

I don't know if there's anything glaring that was different about DeSean from scrimmage one to two. I think he's got great command, comfort in what we're doing. He continues to get better in playing without the ball, pass-protection we're we're really confident in him in that. So, he's just continuing to take steps every day to continue to get better.

Individual skill guys that I liked from today? Okay, DeSean Bishop, Peyton Lewis did a really nice job at the running back spot. Wide receivers, Dont'e Thornton played extremely well. Squirrel White played well. I thought our tight end group as a whole, all three of them, played extremely well today, as well. Thanks for that direct question.

There's no grading on a curve in this game. I wish that was true about Saturdays. You better lineup and defeat the guy in front of you. That may not happen every snap but it better happen more times than not. Our d-line is deep, they're athletic, they play extremely hard, they're playing really good fundamentally. Just pad level, using their hands, that's in pass rush but also in the run game, snagging off and making plays. For our offensive line, we've got to continue to come together. That's always the case this time of year, but really confident and really like what we have on the offensive line.

Play maker that's extremely physical. Plays extremely hard. I think the biggest area of growth for Boo is just continued growth of playing within the scope and scheme of the defense. Alignment, assignment and his physical traits will take over from there.

I think that we're going to have to play multiple guys at that position. All three of those guys are going to play a lot of snaps for us. As we began our tenure here, we've had to navigate some things and that room has probably been thinner at times than we wanted it to be. I really like the three guys that we got in there and all three guys are capable of playing at a championship level.

I think the depth and competition is a coach's greatest friend inside a position room. For us, you have to physically get prepared. Your conditioning level, the physicality of the game, you've got to hit those bench marks to be ready to go play for 60 minutes when we open up here in a couple weeks. At the same time, you're trying to make sure you get your guys to the starting gate, too.

Nico has got really good command of what we're doing offensively. We've seen that throughout this off-season. Really in his development from the last fall, too. He's got great comfort. There's a lot that goes into our quarterback play from protection. Could be changing the protection. In our run game, there's a lot of things that go into it. That's RPO tags, it's loaded box, it's all those things. He's got great command of what we're doing. At the same time, everybody inside of our program has got to grow to get better. I'm not just talking about Nico, I'm talking about everybody, right. It's a journey. Good teams get better throughout the year. We've got three practices left in what I would call our true training camp. We've got to continue to get better.

It's a part of what we've got to do. I think logistically, there's more changes that effected everything outside of the white lines this year. Communication with your players, which is obviously in the field of play, too, but the coordination of that. The iPads, there's been a lot of logistical changes that everybody inside of your program has got to be ready to handle the right way.

You see it on the practice field. You see it during scrimmages. It's the ability to operate, reset from play-to-play, play within the scope of what you're doing on offense, defense, special teams. Every rep matters.

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