KNOXVILLE — Tennessee is trying to find a home for one of its biggest football players.
Redshirt freshman Charles Mosley worked with the defensive line Tuesday as the Volunteers opened spring practice, but it may not be long before the 6-foot-5, 370-pound four-star recruit returns to the offensive line, where he seemed set on playing while he sat out last season after suffering a broken leg in a car accident in July.
“If we have a person who can play both sides of the ball, we’re going to start him on the defensive front,” Tennessee coach Butch Jones said after practice. “Charles is not 100 percent healthy. The time frame for his injury is really a full year of recovery, so he’s working through some things. He’s very, very explosive. He has very, very quick hands.
“What we’re trying to do is make a determination, first and foremost, can he help us on defense. Can he make an impact? If not, then in three or four more practices, we may move him back over to the offensive line. We want to start right now with the defensive front.”
Mosley played both ways at Brighton High School in West Tennessee, racking up 20 tackles for loss and eight sacks as a senior in 2013, but he often shadowed the Vols’ offensive line during practices while sidelined last season.
‘Different world’
While he sat out most of his freshman season after shoulder surgery, Dillon Bates soaked up all he could about both the Vols’ middle and outside linebacker positions.
Earlier this offseason, though, he was told he needed to emphasize familiarizing himself with the middle linebacker spot.
“I got a little taste of both just being at the meetings with everybody,” he said. “I knew all the terminology and knew everything. It’s just a different place on the field. It’s a whole different world.”
Bates, who said he’s between 230 and 235 pounds, played multiple positions across the defense in high school, and he seems more on edge about getting his first solid hit on his shoulder out of the way than he does about learning a different spot.
“The Mike is kind of the quarterback of the defense,” he said. “You’ve got to be a more vocal leader. You have to set the front, you have to know everything and you have to know everybody, what they’re doing and all their places. It’s more of a mental part. It’s almost the same physicality (and) you’ve got to be very physical anywhere you’ve got to be.
“It all feels kind of natural.”
QB chatter
Jones said he liked some of the things freshman quarterbacks Quinten Dormady and Jauan Jennings did during their first Tennessee practices Tuesday.
“I thought Quinten did some very good things, I thought Jauan did some good things as well but also it makes you realize they’re freshmen and they have a long, long ways to go,” the coach said. “That’s very, very understandable. That was their first collegiate practice, but I was very encouraged by what I saw at that position as a whole.”
Starting quarterback Josh Dobbs also gave the freshmen positive reviews as they vie for the No. 2 spot.
“They had very good days,” Dobbs said. “I remember when I was a freshman, I know exactly what it’s like to get thrown in the fire for your first practice. They did a very good job of showing that they understand the concepts that we put in this winter. It’ll definitely be great to see them grow throughout this offseason. They definitely have a high ceiling.”
DeBord’s debut
The 2015 season will be Jones’s ninth as a head coach. Tuesday was the first practice of that tenure in which Mike Bajakian was not his offensive coordinator.
Mike DeBord, Tennessee’s new coordinator, showed plenty of energy as he oversaw his first practice since the Vols tabbed him to replace Bajakian in February.
“It was great to have Coach DeBord out there,” Jones said. “He was interacting with all the position groups. It was great to see him out there, and I thought our players again did a great job with some new stuff thrown at them, some different things in the structure of practice that we haven’t done in the past.”
Tennessee tidbits
Jones called sorting out who the second and third options are at linebacker behind Jalen Reeves-Maybin “one of the questions we need to get answered” by the end of spring practice. … Jones’s review of junior college transfer running back Alvin Kamara’s first practice: “He said it took a while to get used to the tempo, but once he got used to the tempo, you could see the natural ability start to kick in.” … Jones said cornerback Cam Sutton “wants to be one of the premier corners in our conference, and he’s working exceptionally hard at that.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.