University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley talks about the upcoming season during a media luncheon Monday at Neyland Stadium. The Vols’ first fall practice is Tuesday and the team opens the season Sept. 3 against Montana.
Photo by Paul Efird/News SentinelKNOXVILLE — Derek Dooley starts his second preseason camp as the University of Tennessee football coach this afternoon, and again he’s got a team overflowing with youth.
Dooley’s roster consists of more than 55 freshmen and sophomores.
“Coach Dooley said it before. He said this was year one and last year was year zero,” senior tailback Tauren Poole said at Monday’s news conference to introduce today’s start of preseason camp.
“He didn’t have a chance to really, really engage and really get his whole philosophy down and lay his foundation [last year], but now he’s got to the point where he has his guys in here,” Poole said. “We know what he wants and we know what he expects from us, so we can take that to the field and apply it as best as we can.”
Dooley has admitted on more than one occasion this offseason his feelings of uncertainty with this team. Last year, the staff and the players were focused primarily on understanding each other and learning a new system on and off the field. It does help this time around, however, Dooley said, that the much of the team is newcomers he and his staff recruited over the course of a year.