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Tennessee football will have almost its entire 2025 signing class on the field in spring practice, allowing freshmen to get a head start toward the regular-season rotation.
Granted, most early enrollees develop steadily, play sparingly as freshmen and sometimes take a redshirt year.
But a few flash so brightly in spring practice that it leads to significant playing time, and there are ample opportunities this spring.
UT will debut 23 early enrollees when spring practice begins March 7.
That’s almost double the usual number of early enrollees for the Vols. They averaged 13 early enrollees per year in the past three spring practices under coach Josh Heupel.
So how can these freshmen break out this spring? There are examples from the recent past to follow.
Here are five early enrollees who turned spring success into immediate playing time in the fall, as well as a 2025 early enrollee who could repeat their feat.
Jeremiah Telander did his homework
In spring 2023, freshman linebacker Jeremiah Telander was ranked 18th among 24 signees in UT’s class, according to 247Sports Composite. But he closed that gap by diligently studying the playbook and watching film.
Telander was among 14 early enrollees who participated in Orange Bowl practice in December 2022. Coaches gave them the playbook. Telander created flash cards of each play to study, which accelerated his vocabulary and recognition in UT’s system.
During the winter, Telander gained 12 pounds in the weight room. And he watched copious amounts of game film of UT’s linebackers from the previous season.
All that gave Telander a leg up in his first spring practice. During his 2023 freshman season, he made 35 tackles, which led all freshmen, and played almost 300 snaps on defense and special teams.
2025 comparison: Linebacker Jaedon Harmon. It took a lot of faith in linebackers…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/tennessee-football-early-enrollees-impress-100203895.html
Author : Knox News | The Knoxville News-Sentinel
Publish date : 2025-02-26 10:02:00
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