Tennessee head football coach Derek Dooley answers questions at a news conference on Monday, March 21, 2011, in Knoxville, Tenn. Tennessee began spring practice on March 22. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)KNOXVILLE – Derek Dooley is going to need more than flashes.
That’s what the Tennessee football coach got from his freshmen last season, when the Volunteers were battling through the youth and depth issues that come as a result of two coaching changes in successive years. But if UT is to make a leap in Dooley’s second year, it’s on the second-year Vols to make jumps of their own.
“I think they’ve made progress,” Dooley said of his rising sophomores after Saturday’s spring game, “but I don’t think they grasp it right now – what it means and the intensity level, the mental intensity and the work ethic. So we’re just going to keep working on that.
Hopefully over the next 8-14 weeks before we report [for camp in August], we make another jump in how we work and how we recover and our ability to sustain.”
Fifteen true freshmen and four redshirt freshmen were key contributors for the Vols last fall, and Dooley stressed before spring practice began the importance of those players developing into consistent, every-down players.