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Derek Dooley likens UT's offensive line to a bunch of babies

By Joel Hollingsworth
Awwwwww. (Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/mar1lyn84/">Sabrina Campagna</a>.)
Awwwwww. (Photo by Sabrina Campagna.)
  • Although the Vols were sore, tired, and hot yesterday at practice, coach Britches coolly informed them that "nobody really cares." Only the offensive line gets a pacifier (excuse me, mouthpiece), which Dooley described as in a newborn "lay on our back and whine stage." He must have really enjoyed that analogy, because he toyed with it for what seemed like forever. Check out the video; Dooley started riffing on the o-line-as-newborns concept and kept going for so long I wondered whether he was going to find his way back to the point. He did, though, and the point was this: the offensive line has a long way to go to get ready for games this fall.
  • Art Evans, who's recovering from a shoulder surgery, is unlikely to see any real action until the fall ($?). No matter, says DB coach Terry Joseph, because the absence of both Evans and Dennis Rogan, who left early for the NFL, is allowing freshmen Eric Gordon and Nyshier Oliver to make some noise ($?).
  • According to Inside Tennessee, Matt Simms took "all the early reps with the first team offense." ($?) Bray took "most" of the second snaps, and Stephens got "fewer" with the third.
  • This sounds fun. Luke Stocker says he's loving the fact that Dooley and Chaney are planning to use double moves for the tight ends extensively this fall:
    "They let us get out in space and give us the opportunity to make double moves," he said. "You're not always running a 10-yard out. Sometimes you'll run 10-yard out and up or a 10-yard out and spin back in ... whatever. It gives us an opportunity to make some moves and get in some space."
  • Nick Reveiz and Austin Johnson are competing the same linebacker position, but it's not keeping Reveiz from helping Johnson as much as he can, and it's not keeping either of them from outlasting LB coach Lance Thompson in the video room:
    "I was up here last night watching tape at ten o’clock and both of them were up there with me," Thompson said of Johnson and Reveiz. "I left and said I am going home to get some sleep you guys need to do the same. They are just football junkies and as a coach that’s what you love about them."
  • Wayne Chism and J.P. Prince going 55th and 56th in the NBA Draft? You gotta love this analysis of Prince:
    "Blessed with the ability to seemingly suspend himself in mid-air" is how the evaluation of Prince is written on the Web site. "... clever around the basket ..."

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