Tennessee football’s Five most encouraging signs from 2022 spring practice

Last year, Tennessee football entered spring practice with tons of questions. It wasn’t just the coaching change and the NCAA investigation. The turmoil and roster turnover with so many transfers resulted in tons of questions. This past spring was a lot different, as lots of starters were back and just refined their skills.

As a result, not having a designated spring game due to the Neyland Stadium renovations wasn’t the worst thing to happen to the Vols. However, even without that spring game, we were able to gain a few observations regarding the team, and many are exciting.

Based on press conferences and the one open scrimmage, we’re going to take a look at reasons to be excited about Rocky Top based on what happened in March and April. None of this is set in stone, but then again, those early practices never are. These are the five biggest positives from Tennessee football’s 2022 spring practice.

5. There’s more depth and competition at linebacker.

On paper, the return of all three rotational linebackers when Tim Banks usually just uses two would seem like a good thing. However, Solon Page III and Aaron Beasley struggled in multiple ways last year, and despite his productivity, Jeremy Banks was as bad when it came to containment in the passing game.

Juwan Mitchell being back was naturally going to help with that along with the development of William Mohan. However, a couple of key things stood out in the spring. Elijah Herring and Nebraska Cornhuskers transfer Jackson Hannah seemed to emerge.

In the open scrimmage, Herring had a defensive touchdown. Meanwhile, Brian Jean-Mary touted Hannah as a pleasant surprise. That means even more depth has emerged. Want to know the competition is better for Tennessee football? Aaron Willis, the most highly touted recruit of ther bunch, hit the transfer portal.