Vols Saturday Night Scrimmage
I think most fans were holding their breath today waiting to see if Erik Ainge would bounce back from the somewhat suspect performance he had in last weeks scrimmage. Feel free to exhale at any time. The verdict is in and Ainge played much better. He finished 17-26 for 196 yards and 1 touchdown. The biggest stat may have been that he did not throw an interception. In fact, none of the quarterbacks did. The only turnover was a fumble by Josh Briscoe after he caught a 25 yard pass from Crompton.
Ainge looked more composed in this scrimmage even though he was sacked several times. The offensive line still has some work to do. It looks as if they are having trouble picking up blitzes. Hopefully they can make some drastic improvement between now and the opener with California.
Crompton finished 9-14 for 99 yards. Jonathan saw more pressure than he did last week but he handled it well and showed his ability to scramble. He looks very confident when he is on the football field. I would bet he won’t grade out quite as well in this scrimmage but he did have another solid performance.
Another very important test from tonight’s scrimmage was how well the offense got in and out of the huddle. The Vols passed with flying colors. No timeouts were called due to the play clock running down or confusion about the play call.
The running game was not a big focus tonight as it was obvious the passing attack was empasized. Arian Foster saw very limited work. Montario Hardesty, however, showed flashes of being the back we thought he could be before his injury. He ran with a lot of intensity. LeMarcus Coker showed his speed and quickness. Both managed to get in the end zone.
Special teams had several big plays. The punt return game had a big boost from Austin Rogers who had a 60 yard return that fell just short of a touchdown. Lucas Taylor shined as well with an 80 yard kickoff return down to the 20 yard line. Robert Meachem blocked a punt that was picked up and run into the end zone by Antwan Stewart.
The wide receivers showed improvement and even made some big plays. Quintin Hancock led the way with 5 catches for 68 yards including a 36 yard catch and a 5 yard TD catch. Lucas Taylor had a 67 yard TD catch and Meachem caught a touchdown pass from Ainge. Brad Cottam had a big 39 yard catch from Ainge where he really used his 6-8 frame to go up over the defensive back. Another positive from tonight: very few drops. Hopefully the extra work Trooper Taylor has been putting his guys through is paying off.
The FG kicking was a bit of a concern in this second scrimmage. Wilhoit struggled with his accuracy hitting only 4-10 FG attempts. Only one of those was over 50 yards.
The defense was able to get pressure on the quarterbacks most of the night. They contained the running game for the most part and had several tackles for a loss. The secondary gave up more plays than they did last week but some of that has to lie in the fact that the offense had something to prove.