Tennessee took to the practice field Thursday, opening spring practices under first-year head coach Josh Heupel.
Heupel met with media following practice and detailed what he wants to get accomplished during the spring.
“I think as an overall program, you’re in a race to become as good as you can as fast as you can,” Heupel said. “That’s the challenge for your players every single day. You’ve got to enter the building with great urgency and put pressure on yourself to soak in as much as possible, go out there, play and execute. At the same time, you’re trying to balance that to where your kids aren’t overwhelmed and they have an opportunity to soak in the information that they need to, go out there and compete. In all three phases, you’re balancing your installs.
“You’ve got to understand that it’s year one. Your system may be this, but it’s year one, practice one for your guys. So, you spoon-feed them. You give them an opportunity to soak in what you’ve done. That’s partially why we backed up spring ball, to make sure that they had an opportunity to get some of that information beforehand and get some of the playbook digested. You can push it as far and as fast as you possibly can before it gets to spring ball. You come back and now you’re back to a day one install. As your players came back to day one, I think they grabbed onto a whole lot more than we probably thought that they would as we got ready for practice one. I thought we handled that pretty well.”
Josh Heupel’s quarterbacks by the numbers
Josh Heupel’s running backs by the numbers
Josh Heupel’s wide receivers by the numbers
Josh Heupel’s tight ends by the numbers
Josh Heupel’s linemen, defensive players on offense by the numbers
Below are photos from Tennessee’s first spring practice under Heupel. Photos are provided by Tennessee Athletic Communications.