Tennessee is showing an early interest in McCallie quarterback JaVaughn Craig (3).KNOXVILLE – Like many young quarterbacks around the country, JaVaughn Craig has watched episodes of Jon Gruden’s “Gruden’s QB Camp” on ESPN, where the former Super Bowl-winning coach and current Monday Night Football analyst interviews, critiques and instructs quarterbacks heading into the NFL draft.
The McCallie School quarterback, a rising junior, actually got to live out the television show last weekend.
Craig was on Tennessee’s campus last weekend for the Volunteers’ quarterback camp, and Gruden was in Knoxville for the weekend as second-year coach Butch Jones’s special guest and spoke to the team on Friday night before taking part in Saturday’s camp at Neyland Stadium.
“It was very cool,” Craig said by phone Tuesday night. “It was a unique situation, because just the day before I was going back through and watching the draft academy and then some of the things he did with Johnny Manziel and Teddy Bridgewater, Blake Bortles and all the other elite quarterbacks that went into the draft.
“Just knowing that I was going to be coached by him, it just gave me a boost or a sense of motivation and inspiration to do my best, and knowing that he corrected me on a few of the mistakes that I made during the camp and told me that I will be an elite prospect and I will be an elite quarterback one day, that meant a lot.