Even without two of its bigger names, Tennessee’s Saturday night scrimmage under the lights at Neyland Stadium served its purpose.

Starting tailback LaMarcus Coker did not dress out or participate in the football scrimmage, while receiver Jayson Swain sat out to rest a nagging ankle injury.

Coker’s absence had nothing to do with the sprained knee he suffered during the regular season.

"He did not do something that he told me he was going to do," UT coach Phillip Fulmer said. "Until he does it, he won’t practice. I’d say he’s going to miss two or three days because it’s going to take him that long to get it squared away."

Fulmer said Coker’s status for UT’s Jan. 1 date with Penn State in the Outback Bowl would not be affected "unless he doesn’t get it done."

The Vols got a lot done during their 90-minute workout.

Without Coker, Montario Hardesty carried three times for 8 yards with the first team, while Arian Foster gained 29 on six carries and took a screen pass 35 yards while working with the second team.

Against the second-team defense, quarterback Erik Ainge completed 5 of his 10 passes for 117 yards and a touchdown.

Sixty-four of those yards came on a catch-and-run to Bret Smith.

Ainge’s touchdown pass was a 3-yard fade to Robert Meachem, who finished with three catches for 31 yards.

In four series’ of work, Ainge led the first team to a field goal and a touchdown.

Along the way, there were a few mistakes.

"I thought it was good," said Ainge, who completed his final three passes after starting out 2-for-7. "Obviously it wasn’t as good as it could have been. There were a couple plays we missed. A couple bad routes ran, I missed a couple guys, a couple bad blocks, but we got good work. We got live work, and you can’t do that every day in practice."

The defense looked sharp early, recording four sacks in the second team’s first 10 plays.

Middle linebacker Marvin Mitchell had two.

Rico McCoy, playing in place of Jerod Mayo (knee) at outside linebacker, had two tackles and a sack.

Andre Mathis, Robert Ayres and Demonte’ Bolden also had sacks.

"For the plays that we did, we made a lot of plays and did a lot of positive things," said safety Jonathan Hefney, who had two tackles, a pass break-up and a forced fumble. "I think we’ll be more physical when the game comes around on January 1st. Look out for us. We’ll be doing something big in the game, I think."

The biggest thing the Vols will take from the scrimmage — its only one before facing the Nittany Lions — was being able to break up the 36-day break between games.

"The live scrimmage work was great," Fulmer said. "For us to not have anything like that between the Kentucky game and the time we play Penn State would have been bad.

"Our first focus is on Penn State. That’s the biggest reason we were trying to do this, but at the same time to get the young guys some work."

Third-string quarterback Nick Stephens connected on 8 of 9 passes, and backup placekicker Daniel Lincoln hit on two of his three tries.

Lincoln, who will compete for James Wilhoit’s job next fall, hit a long of 39 yards. His only miss was short from 44 yards out.

While the scrimmage wasn’t pretty at times, Fulmer said it was still a major success.

"I thought it was great for us," he said. "The young men came out here with a fantastic attitude to get better.

"When I watch the film, there will be 10,000 things that we didn’t do well. But I like the attitude the guys had about trying to get better."

Drew Edwards covers University of Tennessee football. He may be reached at 865-342-6274.