After eight practices, Tennessee will hold its first full scrimmage of the spring tonight.

The Vols had a 10-day layoff with spring break, but returned to the field Tuesday and will wrap up spring workouts in exactly two weeks with the Orange & White Game.

There’s been plenty of developments in the meantime though, so here’s what we’ve learned in the last week.

Tennessee’s $1.5 million dollar man has been the belle of the ball this spring, with everyone singing Chaney’s praises. The veteran coordinator finally had his opportunity to speak Friday, and the 57-year-old coach offered up plenty of jokes and insight, none more interesting than his thoughts on his role as CEO of Tennessee’s offense.

No longer tasked with coaching just quarterbacks or tight ends or the offensive line, the new walk-around role has allowed Chaney to get an up-close look at exactly what he’s working with.

“It’s that great,” Chaney quipped, flashing a wide grin.

“I can’t mess anything up.”

Following the quick joke, Chaney actually landed the true punchline: The new role has really benefited Tennessee’s offense by allowing a team full of guys on their third or fourth coordinator to learn a new system much more quickly.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s easier to install an offense when you’re in this role,” Chaney said.

“You can go from room to room to room to room to room to make doggone sure everybody has no questions. I’m blessed here, because the assistants that Coach has put together are fantastic. They’re very good. They’re seasoned vets. They understand what they’re doing, and there are no problems.”

Chaney inherited a veteran group, especially at quarterback and receiver, and that has allowed Chaney to add new concepts rather seamlessly. Many times, the players already know the concepts and are just learning new verbiage .

"We're not reinventing the wheel here," he said. "The experience of those senior receivers is something to hang your hat on right now."

For an offense that routinely couldn’t do much right a year ago, it’s a bit concerning that they’re having problems just snapping the football at times this spring. During every one of his media availabilities thus far, Jeremy Pruitt has been critical of the quarterback-center exchanges, offering up a particularly biting comment this week by saying, “The first thing you have to do as an offense is to take the ball from the center and give it to the quarterback, and you have to do it in a way that the quarterback doesn’t have to make circus catches to catch the snap.”

That same day, Pruitt let it be known that Jerome Carvin got extensive work at center. We don’t know if Carvin was among the guys having snap issues. Instead, it appears more likely that the 6-3, 305-pound sophomore could be a potential solution to the problem.

Carvin started six games as freshman, working at both left and right guard. He battled a broken foot last spring but flashed enough to win a job in fall camp. But his lack of conditioning and the slow (albeit natural) development as a freshman offensive lineman caught up with him.

He’s been a different player this spring, though. Carvin weighs about the same, but his body looks different.

He’s also spent the last three practices — Tuesday, Thursday and Friday — taking first-team reps at center. Former Alabama transfer Brandon Kennedy is expected to hold that job come fall, but still limited with a knee injury, the Vols appear to be looking at options that may not include Ryan Johnson or Riley Locklear.

Carvin’s continued progress will be something to monitor the rest of spring, and it certainly seems noteworthy that the lone offensive lineman Chaney even mentioned Friday, unprompted, too, was the sophomore from Memphis.

“We are moving bodies around the offensive line to find some happiness there,” Chaney said. “Carvin is doing a better job and doing some good stuff.”

There’s nothing new to report regarding the eligibly statuses of transfers Aubrey Solomon or Deangelo Gibbs.

Both are practicing, and Pruitt said the uncertainty around their waiver of availability for the fall, hasn’t changed anything in how they’ve been implemented into practice this spring.

“Everybody gets the same amount of reps, so it doesn’t matter,” Pruitt.

When asked for a clarification on the players’ status, Tennessee’s head coach was even less informative regarding the current waiver requests, saying, “Well, when you file a waiver, there's a process that it goes through and then it’s ruled on by the NCAA.”

Yup, that’s the way it works.

But while Tennessee continues to play the waiting game, the Vols should have some optimism that both transfers will eventually be ruled eligible. Former Ohio State quarterback Tate Martell, who is now at Miami, was the latest marquee transfer to have his waiver request granted, but in the last year, nearly 80 percent of transfer requests were approved.

So despite no new news, Tennessee has to like those odds for Solomon and Gibbs.

📈📈📈 Josh Palmer is a third-year receiver who had the highest yards per catch average — 21.0 — in the SEC a year ago. The Canadian has continued to flash his explosiveness early in camp and the junior has as chance to emerge as Jarrett Guarantano’s go-to target alongside Marquez Callaway. But Palmer may actually earn more playing time due to his improvement as a blocker. Pruitt noted this week that Palmer has been much more physical blocking on the perimeter and the junior receiver told the media that’s been his main focus this spring. “They’ve emphasized blocking,” Palmer said.

“Last year we had a couple opportunities to get touchdowns from perimeter blocking. Right now, as a receiving corps, we’re just doing a better job trying to block.”

📉📉📉 Tennessee’s head coach was disappointed by his team’s lack of retention following a sloppy practice Tuesday upon returning from spring break. Without talking to Pruitt, we don’t know if things improved the next two days, but during the open periods, the sloppiness continued, especially offensively. Tight ends coach Brian Niedermemyer was disgusted with his unit Friday, making them do up-downs in the middle of a drill. Chaney and Tee Martin were irate at the quarterbacks and receivers after an awful routes on air period Thursday.

Again, these are just small snapshots of practice, but no doubt, Pruitt wants the easily correctable mistakes cleaned up the rest of spring.