Kiffin plans to 'play real football' in spring

New Tennessee football coach, Lane Kiffin, said spring practice will be physical, meaning likely no non-contact jerseys.

“We know so little about the players in our system and the only way to find that out is to play real football as much as we can,” Kiffin said Friday on The News Sentinel’s radio show, The Sports Page. “We need to find out who is on board and who we can count on. It is going to be too late to wait until the fall to find that out.”

The intensity and competition, however, could depend on just how many players thrive in UT’s new regime.

“One of our biggest problems right now is we’re not very deep,” Kiffin said. “We’re not deep enough to have a bunch of great guys pushing each other. That’s what we tried to add in recruiting. We’re doing the best that we can with what’s here.”

Spring practice starts on March 10.

Quarterback Quandary: Kiffin said there is no time frame to naming a starting quarterback.

“We don’t know how that is going to come about,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is make a wrong decision based on time.”

The battle is expected to come down to senior Jonathan Crompton, junior Nick Stephens and sophomore B.J. Coleman.

Don’t expect to see star safety Eric Berry lining up at quarterback anytime soon, as he did some last season.

“We don’t want to bring him over right away and he’s doing things on offense and he doesn’t master the defensive system,” Kiffin said. “As great a player as he is, he still has to learn our system to play great in it.”

Helping Hand: Kiffin said he’s seen his team grow tougher thanks to some brutal offseason workouts.

“They have come so far already,” Kiffin said. “This morning, one of the players was struggling. When we first got here, some of the players would have been pointing fingers and calling him names.

“Today, guys went back and picked him up, and got him to finish the drill so I am real pleased where we are right now as a team.”

No Such Thing As …: Kiffin said he’s not concerned that UT has received what most would consider bad press for allegations against other coaches and minor NCAA violations.

“It has helped a lot,” Kiffin said. “For our program to be in the news so much now — not just locally but nationally.

“For the players that we need to recruit that are freshmen, sophomores and juniors that are seeing our colors and our logos, it helps us out tremendously down the road.”

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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