Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray throws the ball during a warm-up prior to an NCAA college football scrimmage Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2011 in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/The Knoxville News Sentinel, Adam Brimer)KNOXVILLE – Some of the math confuses Derek Dooley, and Tyler Bray likes a different method of measuring his improvement.
But however they want to put it, both the University of Tennessee football coach and his sophomore quarterback feel Bray is in a good place on his path of progress entering the season opener against Montana on Saturday.
“You want a guy to be perfect, and that will never happen,” Dooley said after Tuesday morning’s practice. “Has he progressed? Yes. Are we disappointed in him? No, not by any stretch. Now we’ve just got to go out and play now to see where we are.”
Bray does hope to raise his completion rate to 70-75 percent after completing less than half (35 of 75) of his passes in the three camp scrimmages, but the calm California kid grades his own individual performance more by feel than numbers.
“That’s a tough question to answer,” he said when asked if he was where he wanted to be. “Just knowing everything that’s going on, it’s not necessarily the stats. [It’s] more comfort level, reading everything and knowing where people are supposed to be. As a whole offense, we’ve gotten there.”