KNOXVILLE - Marcus Tatum will be an understudy again this year for Tennessee's offensive line, which returns seven players with starting experience.
The 6-foot-6 right tackle brings a badge of honor into the 2017 season that many of his peers in the 2016 signing class cannot match, however.
"What freshman can say they played against multiple first-round draft picks in a game?" Tatum said Thursday.
It was a rhetorical question, and one Tatum posed in response to a question asked of him.
How did he feel about being pressed into action in the seventh game of the season and losing a year of eligibility to do it?
"It's a blessing, and it's not really a problem for me because everything happens for a reason," Tatum said in his first chance to speak with reporters since making his debut against No. 1 Alabama last season. "It really did better me."
Tennessee's coaches threw the lanky freshman into action against the Crimson Tide out of necessity. He had arrived on campus just a few months earlier as a likely redshirt candidate who needed to add about 40 pounds to his frame before testing himself against some of the nation's best competition.
Injuries to Brett Kendrick and Chance Hall early in the Alabama game left coaches with little choice but to use Tatum against one of the nation's fiercest defensive fronts.
The Volunteers played most of the game with backups on the offensive line, and the final score - Alabama won 49-10 - indicated a Tennessee offense that had been strong the first half of the season struggled to overcome the untimely injuries. But the game gave Tatum a memory he won't forget.
"It was very exciting," Tatum said. "It was good experience just to get in there, but I wasn't really looking at it for experience. I was just trying to get in there and perform to the best of my abilities like I'd been practicing for."
Now in his second year in the program, Tatum weighs close to 285 pounds, but maintaining the mass of a Southeastern Conference lineman has its challenges. The Florida native said he ate four peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches before going to sleep Wednesday night, continuing a mission to reach 295 pounds - without losing his speed and agility, he hopes.
Bulking up has helped him in head-to-head practice battles against players like athletic defensive end Jonathan Kongbo, Tatum said.
"The game has slowed down a lot," he said. "It feels like I'm a lot more prepared. I'm not really looking to the guy next to me to see if I'm making the right call now. I'm making the calls, and I know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm not just surviving out there. I feel like I'm starting to contribute more."
Offensive line coach Walt Wells pointed out the other offensive lineman who signed with Tennessee in 2016 - Ryan Johnson and Nathan Niehaus - redshirted last season and are listed as freshmen again this year. But Wells said he likes the approach Tatum has taken to having just three years of eligibility remaining.
"He got thrown into the fire against Alabama," Wells said. "That was a tough one right there. But Marcus is a competitor, and he's done a great job."
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.