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Heupel pleased with physicality and effort in first spring scrimmage

“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.”

That’s the task at hand for Josh Heupel as he navigates his first spring practice as Tennessee’s head football coach. Following six practices, the Vols held their first scrimmage of the spring inside of Neyland Stadium on Thursday night. No winner was determined based off a scoreboard, but both sides of the football made plays and Heupel was pleased with the energy and effort from his team.

“I thought defensively we started extremely fast, played with energy, got off the field and played assignment-sound,” Heupel told the media. “As the scrimmage went on, I thought offensively we did a good job of getting into a rhythm, creating some big plays and operating really efficiently with our tempo, our ball mechanics. 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.

“We’ll want to correct some things as far as decision-making inside of the pocket, but took care of the football. Really good day for us as far as our first scrimmage, our first live action. Our guys are going to learn a ton from this.”

Tennessee’s three available scholarship quarterbacks — Hendon Hooker, Brian Maurer and Harrison Bailey — all split reps throughout the scrimmage. True freshman Kaidon Salter continues to be suspended indefinitely after being involved in a dorm room incident. His standing with the team remains the same, though Heupel stated that he feels like “we’re getting closer to knowing some of those things as it goes through the appropriate channels.”

None of the available quarterbacks were designated as the first-team, second-team or third-team quarterback. All three rotated throughout and as it got late in the scrimmage, the coaching staff based the reps on how many each quarterback had received to that point in order to even it out.

“I thought all three of them did a really good job of managing the game,” Heupel said. “Communication was good, not great. We can be better in that area. I thought they pushed the tempo and 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. They’re picking it up. Never where you want them to be. You’re always pushing them to be further ahead, but they are a competitive group that’s approached the practice field the right way.”

Tennessee didn’t shy away from being physical in its first scrimmage of spring. It was “full-throttle tackle” for 85% of the scrimmage, before ending with “thud” situations with the third group in an effort to manage reps and keep guys healthy.

“I thought the physicality of it early was really good,” Heupel said. “I thought they played with energy, especially on the defensive side of the football early. As we got into the middle part of the scrimmage, I thought the offensive line, the tight ends and even on the perimeter with the way we blocked really improved throughout the course of play.

“We really tried to create — and did create — some vertical seams in our run game, created some big plays there. It allowed us to play with tempo as well. I thought there were really a lot of positive things from our football team. I think in general the ball mechanics, learning how to play with the tempo, guys did a lot of really positive things. And defensively, I thought they reset from play-to-play in a really positive way.”

Now Tennessee turns its attention to an open practice. They’ll be back inside of Neyland at 10 a.m. on Saturday for practice No. 8 of spring to give fans a glimpse of the new-look Vols.

“They’ve put in seven great days of work up until this point,” Heupel said. “Gives us an opportunity to go showcase in front of our fans, in front of this state, who and what we are at this point, but also forecast a little bit of who we’re going to be by the time we get to the fall. Wanted an opportunity for our fans to come in and have an opportunity to see the work that our kids have put in and see who we are.”

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