Tennessee opened spring practices Thursday inside Anderson Training Center under first-year head coach Josh Heupel.
Heupel comes to Tennessee as one of the sport’s most innovative offensive minds.
Following practice, Heupel discussed Tennessee’s quarterbacks throughout the early stages of playing for him and UT’s new coaching staff.
“I thought they handled the tempo portion of some of our team sets extremely well, handled the communication parts of it, played within themselves,” Heupel said of Tennessee’s quarterbacks. “They made some mistakes out there, too, but they did a lot of really positive things, too. The thing that we’ve challenged to our guys is don’t make the same mistake twice. Be coachable, accept coaching in a positive way, learn from it, grow from it, change from one rep to the next.
“As we called the team up today, that was just one of the points of emphasis I made to them. I saw guys who really accepted coaching, challenging themselves to get better from one rep to the next in a really positive way. I thought there was a ton of positive energy out there between players and coaches.”
Heupel also discussed how Tennessee’s quarterbacks are grasping his playbook, saying they are “right where you want them to be.”
“I think as a coach, you always want to be further ahead than where you’re at,” he continued. “You’re never accepting of where you’re at. You’re always pushing forward, but we got guys that they’ve been great inside the meeting room. A bunch of guys that are learning how to put in extra time and effort, meet with coaches, on top of what’s required.
“Players meeting together, watching film together. Those are the things you know everybody, you know, there’s a NCAA requirement or max number of hours that you get with a man. Great players, great teams, they’re going to go above and beyond that all the time and our guys are learning to have, how to have, really good work habits.”
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