On the first play of last Saturday afternoon's Orange & White Game inside Neyland Stadium, quarterback Nico Iamaleava dropped back to pass and immediately experienced a down-by-contact sack from linebacker Jeremiah Telander.
Given the way Telander was playing down the stretch last season, that shouldn't have come as a surprise.
Though Saturday's scrimmage was only 99 minutes, the 6-foot-2, 230-pound sophomore from Gainesville, Georgia, still managed to fill up the stat sheet with four tackles and two sacks that totaled 13 yards. Telander has worked at the middle and weakside linebacker spots for new position coach William Inge.
"I think that I've gotten a lot better in every segment, even in that little segment when we had from the last game of our regular season to the Citrus Bowl," Telander said in a news conference earlier this month. "From the Citrus Bowl until now, I've gotten a lot better. My confidence has risen every single day and my level of preparedness has risen.
"There has definitely been a big difference from the Citrus Bowl to now."
Telander (pronounced TEE-lan-der) was among the lower-rated signees in Tennessee's 2023 class but wound up being one of its most productive members as a freshman, playing in all 13 games and tallying 35 tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss. During the last five games against Connecticut, Missouri, Georgia, Vanderbilt and Iowa, he racked up 23 of those total tackles and all of his lost-yardage stops.
With junior linebacker Elijah Herring announcing Monday night that he was entering the NCAA transfer portal, Telander and fifth-year senior defensive tackle Omari Thomas are suddenly the top returning tacklers for the Vols. Aaron Beasley, Jaylen McCollough and Gabe Jeudy-Lally are now focusing on the NFL with the draft next week, while Wesley Walker and Tamarion McDonald entered the transfer portal this past December.
"Having Telander around has been great," Inge said. "I've seen him literally grow and take steps each day — and that's something that we really try to do as a group. The biggest thing that he brings is leadership, toughness and the ability to really understand the system. The things that we've really liked about him thus far is that he has been very, very calm and that he is calming everyone down when the storm comes.
"He knows that he can put it on him to be the person who wants to be accountable and be the guy that is going to go out there and make the play. We've definitely been pleased with him thus far in the spring."
Tennessee's linebacker contingent is expected be headed later this year by Keenan Pili, who was injured in last season's opener against Virginia after transferring to the Vols from Brigham Young University. Arion Carter, Kalib Perry and midyear enrollee Edwin Spillman should be prominent pieces as well, with Telander very much in the mix from a productivity and leadership standpoint.
"The competition is going to be super high," Telander said. "This spring, you could just see it out there every day. It's going to be interesting this summer and fall to see who can be the most consistent and who can make the most big-time plays when they come.
"As the games went on last season, I felt more and more confident, but it definitely took some time. I've definitely put some weight on. I trust what I can do, and I trust my technique. Physically, I feel dominant."
Reeling them in
Tennessee announced on Wednesday that 1,161,218 people attended home games for football, men's basketball and women's basketball during the past several months, a total that led the nation.
The only other schools to top 1,000,000 were LSU and South Carolina.
Tennessee's average 0f 30,558 for home games in those three sports was followed by Michigan's 26,992, South Carolina's 25,505, LSU's 24,201 and Nebraska's 23,390.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.