College football spring games can serve as that inaugural showcase for touted midyear enrollees, and it will be no different at Tennessee on Saturday as fans will get their first glimpses of quarterback Jake Merklinger, receivers Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley, and cornerback Boo Carter inside Neyland Stadium.
Yet it's also a second-time-around opportunity for many players, which is the case in the running back room for the Volunteers.
"I think we have a good collective group from top to bottom," first-year running backs coach De'Rail Sims said earlier this week in a news conference. "I'm excited to see how we finish out this spring. How we finish off on Saturday is going to be critical."
The Orange & White Game, which will have attendance capped around 10,000 due to Neyland Stadium construction, is scheduled to start shortly after 1 p.m. and can be viewed on the SEC Network+ streaming option.
Tennessee's running backs were headed last year by Jaylen Wright and Jabari Small, with Wright gaining 1,013 yards during the regular season to become the program's first 1,000-yard rusher since Jalen Hurd in 2015. Both Wright and Small bypassed the 35-0 demolishing of Iowa in the Citrus Bowl to focus on their NFL plans, but Dylan Sampson and Cameron Seldon certainly picked up the slack by combining for 188 yards on 33 carries.
Seldon, however, sustained a shoulder injury earlier this spring, which has resulted in more carries for sophomore Khalifa Keith and redshirt freshman DeSean Bishop behind Sampson, who is a junior and the unquestioned starter.
"They're fighting every day," Sampson said. "It's hard with the numbers low in the room, but they come out here and attack every single day. They're learning and growing in each phase of the game."
This is the second Orange & White Game for Bishop, a 5-foot-10, 200-pounder out of Karns High School in Knoxville. He had the most action of anybody in last year's contest, rushing a whopping 24 times for 90 yards.
Bishop suffered an ankle injury during the first preseason scrimmage last August and never played last season.
"I think his biggest strength right now is his vision, honestly," Sims said. "His eyes and his feet are able to match together, and he doesn't allow his feet to play ahead of his eyes. He is understanding where the hole is going to be from an anticipation standpoint, and now he's able to make that cut and be able to go.
"His patience, his vision, and then his eyes and his feet are married up together."
Keith arrived in Knoxville last season, so this will be his first spring game, but he played in 12 of 13 games last season. The 6-1, 233-pounder from Birmingham, Alabama, had carries in four of those contests, rushing 11 times for 24 yards.
"With Khalifa, I think every day with him is another step to take forward," Sims said. "Right now, the biggest jump with him is just having the confidence in himself to be out here and execute, even if he makes a mistake. He doesn't need to get down and let it get him in a rut for the next play, and I think that portion of it has been good.
"I also think he's just continuing to learn how to run. That's the biggest key, understanding what your size is and understanding how to use that as a weapon."
Whether either back matches Bishop's 24 carries last April remains to be seen, but they expect to be plenty busy.
"When Cam went down, that hurt the running back room a lot," Keith said. "He's a great player, but me and DeSean kind of had to move up and take on a bigger role. It's nothing we can't handle.
"I feel like we're prepared for it, and we're just going to continue to work."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.