Vols Searching For Consistency From Wide Receivers

The Tennessee Volunteers’ wide receivers are expected to the team’s strongest position group this fall.

Vol fans are excited at the thought of Josh Malone, Marquez North and Von Pearson lining up together on the first-team offense. They’re also excited about the depth Tennessee now has at the position.

Pig Howard, Jason Croom, Josh Smith, Johnathon Johnson, Vic Wharton and Ryan Jenkins are all players that could also contribute in 2014.

Essentially, things are looking bright at a position that was depleted just a year ago.

But that doesn’t mean they’re a complete unit just yet.

Consistency, which has been a major story line so far during fall camp, is something Tennessee’s young wide receivers need to find.

True freshman Josh Malone, for example, has been described by wide receivers coach Zach Azzanni as a “roller coaster”.

Malone has made some impressive catches during practice, then at other times displayed poor body language (which the coaches called him out for multiple times).

The young wide receiver is still grasping the offense and what it takes to be a college wide receiver. I’m confident he’ll be just fine.

But Malone isn’t the only player that’s been inconsistent.

The whole unit, according to Azzanni, needs to work on being more consistent.

"Azzanni: We are too inconsistent right now. One day we will have a great day and the next day we will look like we don’t even have wideouts out there. We need consistency. I ‘m playing a lot of guys, I am plugging guys in, they are playing at every single position right now. I am trying to see who does what, I am trying to see the right chemistry of the four that go out there first. So I am finding out a lot of different things. We got a lot of bad habits that I am trying to break. Those young guys got away with one-handed catches in high school, but guess what, they are not jumping over little short guys that aren’t playing football anymore,"

If the Vols want to be successful this season then wide receiver will have to be one of the most consistent groups on the field.

Whoever ends up at quarterback for the Vols will not have a lot of time in the pocket to search for open receivers.

Tennessee’s wide receivers will have to be crisp in their routes. They have to limit mistakes and perform at a much higher level than they have been in practice.

Basically, they have to be a safety net for the quarterbacks.