Austin Price, who covers Tennessee for On3 Sports, tells McElroy & Cubelic how Tennessee's fall camp has fared, why the secondary is going to look different especially after a key injury, and where the WRs have improved ahead of the season
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The question is, as you said, it's got to go from four to eight. I think they can do that. It would be hard not to get better considering how bad they were on the offensive line last year. Now, their schedule actually feels harder this year than it was last year. Search for the Rich Eisen Show on YouTube or wherever you listen. This Jocks 94.5 podcast is brought to you by Millennium Satellite and Video. Log on to MSBnow.com. TV excellence everywhere. That's Millennium. McElroy and Kubelik in the morning starts now.

Welcome back in. Michael Roy and Cuba Lake in the morning, 8.45 a.m. Monday, August 5th. Jocks, 94.5. Appreciate you tuning in. Get to Austin Price here in just a moment. Not only talk injuries, but some good recruiting news for Tennessee as well as they had another big weekend in recruiting. Before we do that, G-Mac, tell our listeners about Bromberg's.

Well, I go to Bromberg's and I've been shopping at Bromberg's for years. I've had just an amazing experience. Every time I walk in there, seeing to walk in, everybody knows your name. Everybody knows your preferences. They know your wife's name in some cases. It's really amazing. So I go in to

the Mountain Brook Village location. They also have a location at the Summit. It's amazing that they have fine jewelry, watches, giftware, the best in customer service. I've purchased things there not just for my wife but for my family. We've purchased tons of gifts there as well. They also do special one-of-a-kind custom jewelry as well. It's one of the oldest businesses not just in the state but in the country. They opened their doors for the very first time in 1836. That's nearly 200 years ago.

of high-end luxury shopping experience that you can have at Bromberg's. Check them out at one of their two locations, Mount Brook Village or The Summit, and you can also shop online at Brombergs.com. All right, let's talk some Tennessee camp with Austin Price. He joins us now on the Buyer's Right Hotline. Austin, some bad news for Tennessee over the weekend. Jordan Thomas, knee injury. Sounds like he's going to be out for the year. How does this impact the Tennessee defense moving forward?

Well, I mean, you've got a lot of change, Cole, in the secondary this year for Tennessee, which is something fans have been clamoring for. One of your older veteran guys was Jordan Thomas, and now you lose him. So you can go about this a couple of different ways, but most likely it will be true freshman Boo Carter who will

who will be given the opportunity to take that job. And can he earn it the next 25 days before the Vols play Chattanooga? I think there's a real opportunity for him there. He's made plays all spring long. He's made plays early in fall camp. And a kid that just carries himself with a ton of swagger and confidence and athletic ability that the coaches, you know, really, you know,

coveted in the recruiting process. So that makes the most sense. If it's not him, you have Christian Harrison, who is Rodney Harrison's son. You could go with Will Brooks, who's a walk-on, who's going to play some in the secondary. He played some in the secondary a year ago. And then you've got a couple other options, like a Christian Charles, who's been banged up throughout his Tennessee career. But Boo Carter makes the most sense, as we said here on this Monday.

That is obviously such a position of concern. It's really the only position of concern, frankly, for me right now. So now that that is you just get a touch thinner and you might get a slightly younger. Does that increase the level of concern at that spot or is it kind of the same as it was prior to the injury?

I think it depends on how good Boo Carter is. I mean, there's a lot of hype and hope around him. And realistically, he could have been pushing Jordan Thomas for the spot anyway. Now it's a little more of a clear path for him there. So I guess for my liking, yeah, there's a little bit of concern about the overall depth there. But depending on how he plays...

There may not be near as much concern long term if he plays well. Austin Price joining us on the Buyers' Right Highline talking Tennessee camp. So who do you turn to? Who needs to sort of be the guy that now Tennessee can lean on, that Tim Banks can rely upon in that secondary to make sure that this is something that can manage itself throughout the course of the season, that that secondary doesn't become a liability for the Volunteers?

I think the biggest question with the secondary, I think they're a much more athletic group than they were a year ago. But who is that? You know, a year ago, everything ran through Jalen McCullough. And now who's that guy? Andre Turrentine's not a talkative guy at safety. Who's the other safety? Is that Will Brooks? Is that Jacoby Thomas? Is it John Slaughter? All of those guys are either inexperienced or just haven't been the guy to this point.

And then I think Thomas was probably going to be the guy from a vocal standpoint. I think that's where you worry if you're Tim Banks is who is making the calls, who is the leader back there? Because you have a lot of really good players. I like Jermod McCoy, the Oregon State transfer. I really like Ricky Gibson, who's from the state of Alabama. I think both those guys are really, I think, huge upgrades at the corner spot. But I wouldn't call neither of those a vocal –

leader. So who can ascend to be that guy in the back end of the defense? That's the biggest question mark I have. Athletically, I think they're more athletic than they were a year ago, and I don't think it's close across the board.

I think that's really encouraging. Offensively, though, is still where most of our eyes will go, especially early in the year. And I'm just curious, early returns on what we've seen from Nico Iamaleava, is it super positive the way it's been all throughout? Or maybe have there been a couple growing pains here early in camp? No, it's been really good. You know, he's...

Really taking what he did in the bowl game, which I thought was kind of bare bones, and then had expanded on it yesterday in some scrimmage work out on the practice field. Looked really, really good. Took Tennessee on a couple of different drives for touchdowns and made a couple of plays that, you know,

No offense to Joe Milton. Joe just couldn't make a year ago. That wasn't his bread and butter. So I think how they call the offense, how they use the middle of the field, all those things I think will be different than how they called the offense a year ago with Joe just because they're two different players, their skill sets are different. And Nico's ability to –

I don't want to call him Bryce Young because Bryce won the Heisman Trophies. But his ability to have that Bryce type intangible of keeping the eyes of the field even when you're moving around and avoiding pressure.

and make plays, kind of broken plays at times, I think that's something that Nico will have a real chance to be spectacular at. And I think that's something he gives this offense that, frankly, they just did not have a year ago. If the reads weren't there on the normal routes and things broke down, Joe just didn't throw it well off-platform.

And I think Nico will bring that. I think this offense, I'm not going to say it's 22 because 22 was so special, but I think it looks more like 22 than it does 23.

When you think about that offense too, Austin, there have been some questions around the receiver position. Now, listen, there's a lot of reason to be confident about it, but I think that there are some questions of just can we be more confident? How confident could we be? We heard some discussion from Coach Heupel about Chaz Nimrod over the weekend, how he could help. I thought he looked great in the spring game. I don't know how big of a piece he can really be.

Brew McCoy's health status, Dante Thornton maybe possibly being the Dante Thornton people thought we were going to get last year. Update us on those three.

Yeah, I think Chaz Nimrod's had a fantastic offseason, and he's certainly a nice one-two punch at the slot position with Squirrel White. Mike Matthews is somebody who will continue to be a factor as well as a young kid along with Braylon Staley, but specifically Brew McCoy looks really good. Now, I don't expect him to do a lot of stuff in fall camp when it comes to the actual scrimmages. Now, he'll do plenty of 11-on-11 work and practice,

But I think they just can be cautious with him, kind of bring him along slowly. But I think he'll be full go, and it is full go right now, but I think he'll be full go when the season starts. You'll see the old Brew McCoy looks really good out there running around, cutting on that ankle. And then Dante Thornton, we'll see. I think he's much more comfortable outside.

And so I think this is a wide receiver room that when Nico played that one game in Orlando, it was just kind of a skeleton crew. This is a much deeper, more talented group because you do have Dante Thornton back. You do have Brew McCoy back. You add Chris Brazel. You add Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews. It's just a deeper unit. And so...

Kelsey Polk, Josh Heupel, Joey Halsley, they have some options, which at the end of last year, they didn't really have many options. And again, as you pointed out, Chaz Nimrod and Caleb Webb, for that matter, have really progressed this offseason. So it's a much deeper unit, which goes back to what I was talking about, the 22 versus 23 thing. I think the wide receiver room has a chance to be really, really good.

We appreciate the updates. Always good catching up with you and look forward to catching up again soon, Austin. Great stuff keeping us up on everything volunteers. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you. All right, there you go. Austin Price, he covers the Tennessee Volunteers for the On3 Sports Network. Follow him on Twitter at AustinPriceless.

I don't know if this is something that's really scary, G-Mac, but I know that that's a position of concern for a lot of people. And so you remove a little bit of your depth. You remove a guy that I think a lot of people were going to rely upon as far as being a part of a secondary that just didn't play great football last year.

And now all of a sudden you've got to go find somebody else to be able to pull that off. And there's a lot of mixing and matching. But you've got some time at least leading into the season. And the number one thing Tennessee will have to be able to lean on is going to be that pass rush. We feel like they're going to be able to get to the quarterback either way. That's going to help a lot. I mean, the pass rush will alleviate a lot of the concerns in the back end. If you have some concerns about your game day attire, Pant Store has you covered. They're your game day headquarters. Guys you can choose from Bama or Auburn. Pullos, hats, zips, cleats.

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you know, good looking handbag at your disposal. Free alterations, a free gift wrap as well. Zip on down to the pants store for all your game day needs. But yes, you're right. The depth is of concern. But if it's, I mean, look, these things happen in camp. Everyone seems to lose one or two guys. Losing them at the first week as opposed to the last week of camp is a

It does help alleviate those concerns some because you can get some guys game ready that you wouldn't have been able to in the first place. We'll have to wait to see how the secondary plays out for Tennessee. One thing you never have to wait for, though, GMAC, is your dental care. That's because Family Care Dental has you taken care of. They're the urgent care office. You can be seen the same day. They have four locations to make it easy on you in Hoover, Fultondale, Homewood, and in Alabaster.

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to get your week started especially and maybe get your back to school going. We'll do that right after this on Mac and Cube in the morning. Catch up with all things McElroy and Kublik in the morning by subscribing to the podcast. Mythically, he's grown. He's almost like a little bit bigger than a player, right? Like the myth of Bo Jackson. Like, rate, and download the show from the Jock Tap or wherever you get your podcasts.

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which you can probably tell from my appearance. I don't have a crazy high IQ or I really don't have that many skills. I would say my main skill is I believe my instincts. I don't hesitate to follow my instincts ever. The extent that I have, I've gotten in trouble. The Sean Ryan Show on YouTube or wherever you listen.