VolNotes: A Month Of Sundays

[orange+white=heaven]

... It's an old timer's greeting for an old friend...'Hello Joe! How ya been? I ain't seen you in a month of sundays!'...

This morning, Tennessee football seems an old friend I ain't seen in a month of sundays. The enthusiasm and energy level I have been reading about this morning from team and fans alike are welcome sights to tired old near-sighted eyes. One day doesn't mean squat in the big picture, but I'm fine focusing on the now.... For now.


Feels good to do this again. Been a long time...

VolNotes-

TFP

Less than 10 minutes after practice, Kiffin rattled off precise statistics to reinforce that satisfaction. Rising senior Jonathan Crompton and sophomore-to-be B.J Coleman completed 78 and 75 percent of their passes. No fumbled snaps. Two false-start penalties. Two dropped passes. One defensive offside call.

“For two brand-new systems, I was pretty excited about that,” Kiffin said. “I thought they did well. Usually what happens (on the first day) is you get a lot of false starts and dropped balls, but we didn’t do that.

“I don’t know what you guys think, but I thought it looked like we’d been out there a long time. We threw a lot of stuff at them that you wouldn’t normally throw at them until day four.”

“We’re a long ways away from a championship level. Don’t get me wrong,” Kiffin said. “But we’ll push them every day, and we’ll eventually get there.
“They gave us spurts of what we needed to be at a championship level, but then they don’t know how to keep going, so we’ll keep working on it and teach them how to finish.”

Vlad Richard

“When Coach (Phillip) Fulmer was here, we had great intensity and great practices ... so it’s not like we’re new to working hard,” said Richard, a rising senior starter. “Now it’s just like we have 20 minutes here, then the horn blows and we’re running over there. It’s kind of like we’re practicing and, at the same time, doing an agility circuit. It was high-tempo, but it was good. Guys were out here working hard. There was a lot of competing.
“I think Coach Kiffin hit it on the head when he had us out here really learning how to compete against each other. That’s how practice has been going a whole lot more smoothly. It was a battle today at the end of practice, and everyone was into it.”

Jon Crompton

“It was very intense but very upbeat, with a lot of competing,” Crompton said. “It was cool. That made it more competitive and more fun.”
He tried taking Kiffin’s compliments in stride.
“This was the first day,” Crompton said. “Right now, it’s just about the basics. We’ll come back and watch the film and get back out here Thursday. It’s always a good thing to start well, but we need to come back out here and compete Thursday.”

Wes Brown

“It was a constant push the whole practice,” rising senior defensive end Wes Brown said. “It was a lot of running, and a lot of mental stuff, too. You get tired, but you’ve got to keep pushing. Overall, it was a lot of fun. The coaches were real intense, and we were having a good time.
“You can line up different and the calls can be different, but in the end it’s all about running to the ball and tackling with high intensity and causing havoc. That’s what we’ve got to maintain.”

GVX

Aside from a slew of media, visitors and former players on hand Tuesday — and the obvious presence of a completely new coaching staff — Tennessee looked and felt comfortable with new schemes and the high-intensity approach taken by Kiffin and his staff in their first official practice at Tennessee.

Fans peered through the fence along Pat Head Summitt Street. Some even bought a ticket for Tuesday’s baseball game only to spend their afternoon watching the action on Haslam Field from the top row of the baseball stadium.

Eric Berry

“Right now we feel it’s kind of like the first game of the season,”

Lane..

“You’re going to see the staff lead by example by their enthusiasm, their energy, their intensity,” Kiffin said. “We’re so far from our players being leaders. They couldn’t possibly be leaders in our system because they don’t know how to lead yet. They don’t know what we want.
“They’ll become leaders eventually. When you’re a great team, players are your leaders. But we have a long way before that. We have to lead now.”

As if they needed a reminder, players were greeted with a banner over the entrance to Haslam Field that read, “Lock In!” in orange letters.

Jon

“Guys have bought in a whole lot more than last year,” Crompton said. “It’s been real refreshing knowing that guys are doing that (extra work) because they want to learn. They want to get into this playbook as far as we can before spring break and then before fall camp. It’s definitely a different mentality.”

Lane

“Watching it from my perspective, it looked like we’ve been out here for a long time,” he said after UT’s three-hour workout. “We threw a lot at them, stuff a lot of times you’re looking at day four before you get to. So I was really pleased with their preparation for practice and their energy that they brought.”

WDEF:Video Report


"Lock In"... I like it.

Go Vols!

 

[Ericvol2096]

mmmm.......this is like music to my ears...(even though it doesn't really mean jack)

 

[Lexvol]

Competition good! (in my best Captain Caveman voice)

 

[westennvol]

THIS ALL SOUNDS GREAT BUT WHAT BOTHERS ME IS CROMPTON WANTS TO WATCH FILM AGAIN.

 

[General Jack]

Thanks O+W=H, one stop shopping for practice updates!

 

[Cartervol]

Focus daniel son.

 

[hohenfelsvol]

Always enjoy reading your updates OWH.

What was the attendance at practice?

 

[g8terh8ter_eric]

Competition good! (in my best Captain Caveman voice)

LOL, who knew you were a Honky Tonk Man and a Capt. Caveman fan at the same time. Course, Cavey started the whole Elvis look back in the Stone Age. Unga Bunga.

 

[bigorange]

awesome. looking forward to riding your coattails through practice once again O+W=H :good!:

 

[jakez4ut]

watched the videos on gvx.....1st day, i guess you have to be pleased, if for no other reason no one came out of it and was like "oh my god, what have we done?".

nice to hear so many of the players buying in as well....to me, that's the most important thing.

 

[Plano Vol]

Yo Ho me hearties, drink up!