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Tennessee coaches and players have remained understandably quiet when asked about any specific changes to the offense under first-year head coach Jeremy Pruitt and offensive coordinator Tyson Helton.
Junior tight end Eli Wolf didn't budge at SEC Media Days when a reporter asked about the schematic changes under Pruitt and Helton.
Wolf channelled his inner coach with an impressive vague answer.
"I won't get into specific changes, but it's just, you know, a wide variety of things,"Â he said. "We can do just about anything. West Coast-style offense, that comes in, obviously, with Coach Helton coming from USC."
A follow-up question revealed at least a little information, though.
It's no secret that Tennessee's quarterbacks will be under center much more than they ever were under predecessor Butch Jones' offense. Jones had multiple offensive coordinators during his five-season tenure at Tennessee, but Jones had an offensive background and the Vols' offense was always his offense - a shotgun-based spread attack. Aside from the occasional short-yardage situation, running backs and quarterbacks were the only guys in the backfield.
Tennessee now has fullbacks, though. Perhaps you'd call them H-backs since the team doesnât seem to have a pure fullback type, but Wolf said the Vols will "obviously"Â have more power running plays after using lots of zone-read and gap-scheme plays the past few years.
After years of spread offense, Vols 'have a fullback now'
The modern game had wandered so far from its roots that most kids today don't even know what a fullback is. I recall hearing that when facing Stanford, Washington HC Petersen had to explain what a fullback is. I for one welcome our return to smash mouth football.