Tennessee football’s five most concerning signs from 2022 spring practice

Coming away with limited observations due to no spring game doesn’t mean all those observations surrounding Tennessee football were positive. The Vols completed spring practice nearly a month ago, and entering Josh Heupel’s second season on the job, there are at least a few questions that came out of those practices.

In many cases, those questions are outright concerns, and they need to be addressed before the start of the season. Concerns can be anything, but they’ll be based on what we saw in the one open scrimmage and what the coaches were saying throughout the spring.

Now, it’s clear that these may not end up being issues at all. After all, access to information was so limited that these are colonels of truth. However, it’s important to point those colonels out, so that’s what this post will do, ranking them in the process. Here are the five most worrying signs that came out of Tennessee football’s 2022 spring practice.

5. Nobody emerged to replace Caleb Tremblay or Ja’Quain Blakely.

A key part of Tim Banks’ defense is the hybrid defensive lineman, one who could line up at defensive tackle or defensive end. They are usually listed as defensive tackles but weigh in the range of 260 to 280 pounds. Caleb Tremblay and Ja’Quain Blakely both filled that role last year, and both are now gone.

While defensive tackles like Omari Thomas and Tyre West drew praise in the spring, nobody who could fill that role received any noteworthy shoutouts. That may seem like something small, but it’s not a position the Vols want to be in entering the summer.

The good news is Dominic Bailey was the only guy on the spring roster who could fill that void, and while hearing his name more would have been a positive, Tennessee football has Jayson Jenkins coming in this summer, and he could fill that role, as could James Pearce. However, that’s not as much depth as they need to have without Bailey.