Vol assistants 'grinding' during camp season
MEMPHIS — Tennessee won't play a football game for nearly three more months, but the schedule hasn't slowed down for the Vols' coaching staff.
UT head coach Butch Jones and a handful of his assistant made time after appearing at a satellite camp to drop in for the Big Orange Caravan stop outside Memphis on Sunday.
The Vols staff was at the University of Memphis earlier Sunday — a day starting before 7 a.m. and lasting the majority of the afternoon — before arriving at the Caravan stop.
It's been a packed stretch for the staff. They have been busy attending camps over the past week, but the approach from his reworked coaching staff hasn't surprised Jones.
“It just kind of confirmed everything I already knew with all the work ethic and the due diligence and research that they do,” Jones told reporters ahead of the Caravan appearance at the Agricenter International on Sunday. “Just the ability to want to work with kids and young adults every single day. It's been great from a staff comrade standpoint, but these guys are absolutely grinding.
“When you look at this past week with all the satellite camps, two camps of our own and being here. A few staff members are somewhere else and a youth camp on Monday and Tuesday and trying to get ready for an upcoming season and our one-day camps as well. There's Orange Carpet Day (too). They are very committed as all of us are to making Tennessee the best football program in America.”
Jones brought in four new coaches this offseason in defensive line coach Brady Hoke, defensive backs coach Charlton Warren, receivers coach Kevin Beard and quarterback coach Mike Canales. Jones also promoted Walt Wells to offensive line coach. During the spring, Jones praised the coaches for the jolt of energy they brought to the program, and it appears they have carried that over into the summer.
One coach who has been visible since coming to Tennessee has been Canalas. The veteran coach was busy on the recruiting trail in the spring and was the driving force behind UT's Arsenal Camp for quarterbacks this past week.
“Obviously loves coaching the quarterback position and growing and developing (that),” Jones said of Canales. “We had our Arsenal Camp this past weekend and I tell you it was the most attended we've had. The due diligence he put in to making that camp very, very successful and the organization (was great). Mike is just a microcosm of the entire staff.”
SPECIAL VISITOR: Jones noted that Tennessee great Peyton Manning will be dropping by the complex sometime in the next week.
Manning has been to Knoxville to train in the past, but the future Hall of Fame quarterback will be later this week as UT's trio of quarterbacks — Quinten Dormady, Jarrett Guarantano and Will McBride — continue workouts on campus.
“I know we're looking forward to Peyton Manning being in town,” Jones said. “He'll be in sometime at the end of this week.”
Tennessee will be hosting arguably its biggest recruiting day over the summer, Orange Carpet Day, on Saturday.