Yesterday evening, we noted a couple of injuries Tennessee had incurred during the first couple of practices of the Lane Kiffin Era.
By all accounts, Kiffin and staff had conducted a rather vigorous and aggressive regimen in the initial stages of camp. There has, however, been a growing undercurrent of talk that Kiffin might be pushing his squad too hard, too soon.
To the new coach’s credit, he’s making no apologies or backing off his agenda to instill an air of toughness to his Volunteers. And he’s fully prepared to put that agenda on full display today as UT heads to Neyland Stadium for a full-pad scrimmage.
“We’re going to scrimmage,” Kiffin said. “We’re going to tackle and see who can really tackle, see who can play off cut blocks and play real football when everything else is going on.
“We’ll go in the stadium for the atmosphere of that just because that’s where you play and it’s pretty important every scrimmage is in there even though you don’t have a crowd.”
For now, it remains to be seen how this shiny new toughness will translate into the won/loss ledger.
What is certain at this point in time, however, is that the hard-hitting swagger Kiffin’s implementing will add yet another layer of intrigue to Tennessee’s September 19 trip to The Swamp.
