Tennessee: Scrimmage will feature new plays, key players

KNOXVILLE — Everything the University of Tennessee football team has done the past two days has been geared toward today.

The Volunteers’ third preseason practice in full pads is their first major scrimmage, and it’s scheduled to start around 4 p.m. in Neyland Stadium. Media and select friends of the program will witness this camp’s first extended look at first-year coordinator Dave Clawson’s offense, as well as several new players between the hash-marks in John Chavis’s defense.

For the head coach, Phillip Fulmer, scrimmages are spent looking for that middle ground. He wants the offense to protect the football, but he wants the defense to force turnovers. He wants to see the wide receivers get separation, but he wants his secondary to stay stride-for-stride with the offense’s best players. He wants to see the defensive front four get to the quarterback, but he’s keeping every quarterback in a green, no-contact jersey throughout camp.

“We’re not in a position to risk losing somebody at that position,” Fulmer said after Friday morning’s walk-through inside the Neyland Thompson Sports Center.

The only common denominator for each side is intensity. There’s no gray area there, for Fulmer or any other head coach.

“We’re looking for effort as the No. 1 factor,” Fulmer said. “It’s a big day for us, and it’s not really about who wins or loses. They’ll be certain situations that we’re looking at a lot about the players, particularly a number of young players that we need to get moved into positions to help our team with depth.”

First-team quarterback Jonathan Crompton won’t be facing live bullets, but defensive end Wes Brown and strongside linebacker Adam Myers-White said they expected coaches to avoid all-vanilla looks.

“We’re excited to get after the offense and see what we have, where we are at this point,” said Brown, one of Crompton’s close friends. “I feel like we’re in a pretty good stage, so we’ll see what we’re made of.

“The first three or four days are when we install all of our blitzes and movements and work on our pad leverage. Tomorrow is when we put it to use, and see if the freshmen can pick it up. Really, it’s a big day for all of us.”

Crompton, who’s loose around his teammates but decidedly cautious with the media, said he just wants to see “everybody getting better, playing fast with a great effort and playing good, team ball.

“We’ve had a good amount of practices under our belt in this new offense, and we’re all comfortable with it, and we know what we’re doing,” Crompton continued. “We’re just looking to go out there and play hard.

“It’s going to be fun seeing how everybody reacts, especially the guys who redshirted last year. It’s going to be a good experience for them going out there and playing in game-like situations against our good defense.”

Young defensive tackles Victor Thomas and Donald Langley will be among the team’s most dissected players today, following junior Chase Nelson’s season-ending knee injury Tuesday.

Fulmer said he won’t hesitate to shift Brown and fellow starter Robert Ayers — the team’s two heaviest ends — to tackle in some passing situations if Thomas and Langley don’t produce.

“We’re going to get our best four pass-rushers on the field, regardless of the position they play,” Fulmer said. “The defensive tackles should take that as a challenge. If you can’t get around the guard, we need to push the pocket and help ourselves.”

This is the third preseason camp for sophomore Thomas, and this is about the time last season that then-third-year sophomore Dan Williams started to emerge. Langley, a redshirt freshman, could be counted on ahead of that typical schedule.

“We’re always doubted about down there (on the defensive line), so I think the first scrimmage is just another piece to the puzzle,” Langley said. “There’s some hype. Every time you’re in the stadium, it’s time to go big or go home. When you’re in the stadium, after all the workouts and all the practices, when you say ‘scrimmage,’ it’s time to show off all the things you work for in the summer.

“When we come into that stadium, all eyes are on us, and the eyes in the sky never lie. It’s time to show everything you work for.”