KNOXVILLE — As one 11-on-11 series ended for Tennessee’s first-team defense early in Saturday’s scrimmage inside Neyland Stadium, Cameron Sutton jogged toward the sideline where the offense was congregating.
After reaching the boundary the senior cornerback turned and ran the width of the field to rejoin his defensive teammates.
Sutton wasn’t momentarily lost.
He was just getting in a little extra conditioning and pushing himself through any potential fatigue.
“I do that every time,” Sutton said after practice.
Most veteran players have their workloads monitored or contact limited during spring practice, but if Sutton has revealed anything about himself during his career with the Volunteers, it’s that he’s wired differently than most players.
The extra running is Sutton just “working the game,” as he described it.
“It’s just my mentality,” he explained. “It’s no knock on anybody else or anything like that, but everybody thinks different and everybody plays the game different. Just how I see the game, how I play the game, my mentality for the game (I do) what I think is going to help me be successful and push me ahead of the rest of the guys.
“Sometimes it might take those things that people might not see, but you’re working and it’s going to help your game.”
After passing on the chance to take his game to the NFL, Sutton looks as locked in as ever this spring.
In scrimmage settings he’s been his typical play-making self, reminding anyone watching that he’s an excellent player, while also carrying himself with the same quiet, all-business manner that’s helped him become a team leader and one of the faces of a program on the precipice of a possible championship run.
“Our players respect him, and he comes out here and all he does is work,” head coach Butch Jones said. “It’s his approach. Like he told me, he treats every practice as though it’s game day, and you can see that, because he continues to grow and elevate his play.”
The Vols recently voted for the two most powerful leaders on offense and defense, and Sutton was a top vote-getter, according to Jones.
“I’m definitely looking at him as an example,” freshman cornerback Marquill Osborne said. “I’m kind of glad he stayed. He’s a huge influence to me and a huge leader. I want to be just like him.”
Osborne said he’s learned from Sutton how to study film, how to balance his time between football and class and how he should carry himself on a daily basis.
“He’s like perfect,” he added.
Sutton would be the first to contend that point.
“There’s always something else to work on,” he said. “No one’s ever perfect. I’m just continuing to work every aspect of my game and continuing to coach the guys around me.”
It’s important to Sutton that he’s viewed as a team leader and an example for the younger players looking up to him, and he understands it’s his responsibility to make his teammates better.
“I have the most experience out of everybody in the room,” he said. “I’m older than all the guys in the room. I’ve played more games than all the guys in the room. I’ve just experienced more than them, and that’s no knock on them.
“I know a little bit more than them right now, and my job is to get them on the same level as me (and) all clicking on the same cylinder. We don’t care about who gets the credit. We’re just about making plays back there.”
Based on spring practice Sutton will make plenty of them himself when the season arrives.
“There’s still much more for him, and I think he needs to start being in the conversations as one of the best corners in the country,” Jones said. “He’s a great student-athlete. He’s everything that we stand for in our football program, and he continues to demand from himself.”
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.