Secrets are hard to guard when 200 people are involved.
There was supposed to be no news from Tennessee football’s second scrimmage but some spilled out. Safety Dejuan Lane intercepted a George MacIntyre pass and turned it into a touchdown. Tre Poteat had what looked like another pick-six but dropped it.
Good news: MacIntyre improved as the Neyland Stadium Saturday session continued. He threw a TD pass to Ian Duarte.
Josh Heupel has not yet named a starting quarterback.
Faizon Brandon may have been a better runner than passer. He got away for a 30-yard run and was scrambling toward another big play when officials stopped the action under the no-contact format.
Later, defensive lineman Tyree Weathersby sacked Brandon (two-hand touch) and the QB snapped back with a long completion to Mike Matthews. That was erased by a holding penalty.
That leads to another reported tidbit: The offense had too many infractions.
More news, good for the defense, bad for Brandon: T.J. Metcalf made an outstanding play to pick off a Faizon pass.
More good news for the defense: Big men up front, particularly tackles Daevin Hobbs and Xavier Gilliam, had a strong scrimmage. Weathersby, Jordan Norman, Nathan Robinson and Mariyon Dye were said to be effective. Confidence is supposedly high among interior defensive linemen.
As usual, Heupel offered an overall positive review of results.
“Good second scrimmage. A bunch of situational work, crowd noise like you’re on the road, a lot of mechanics, communication things that we did well, and some things that offensively, particularly, we learned. Got to continue to get better at that. But all in all, good work.
“I thought defense did a good job, created a couple turnovers, played assignment sound. Offensively, didn’t play as clean as we need to. Some of that was communication, but some really positive things there, too.”
Heupel said the quarterbacks, generally speaking, have done a really good job taking care of the football, making decisions and controlling the offense.
“Today, there were some real positives and some things that they’re going to learn from.”
Heupel was asked to assess both sides of the line of scrimmage.
“Some positives on both sides. I thought the D line was able to apply some pressure. Some of that was where we’re at in the protection of quarterbacks. Offensively, I thought there were some things that were really good in the run game, but not as consistent as we need to be. There were live parts of the scrimmage and some thud plays.”
Heupel was asked if the Vols are about where he thought they would be at this stage of preseason preparations.
“I feel like there are some real positives. There are some young guys that I want to go back and watch the tape. As a football team, they’ve competed, they’ve practiced hard. I think we’ve grown tremendously in fundamentals, our technique. We’ve got two weeks left. We need to continue to grow.”
The coach said the defense has developed some personality.
“Aggressive nature, multiple in what we’re doing. One of the great positives to Jim (Knowles) is the ability to take advantage of the skill sets of guys that are ready to play and call it to their traits. You can see that in some of our packages.”
So, how about the tackling?
“In all, pleased. Not just today, but in this training camp, fundamentally, technically, ultimately getting guys on the ground, our defense in particular, but even some of the offense guys on special teams have really continued to grow.
“You’re never perfect, in particular out in space, but I feel like we’ve grown. We need to continue to do that in smart ways over the next two weeks.”
Tennessee opens September 5 against Furman at Neyland Stadium. The season gets more serious a week later at Georgia Tech.
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