UT’s strength coach inventive in approach

“Being here for 13 years, I have a big grab bag (of drills) I can reach into,” he said.

“Probably this sick little brain of mine goes off at times. I can always gas them when I need it, and back off when I need to.”

Officially, this is the offseason. Preseason doesn’t begin until August. But around the Knoxville campus, and elsewhere, there is an ethic to the voluntary workouts of summer.

“You’ve got to get your mind right, because it’s going to be a test,” linebacker Rico McCoy said Tuesday while working out with most of the Vols’ returners and incoming freshmen.

Seeing the 40-pound weight suits, McCoy said, “That was the shocker right there. When we saw he had enough for just about everybody … That got us right there.”

The Vols have been wearing those heavy jackets for more than a week now. They’ve also been pushing oversized, weighted shopping carts on sled-like runners around the practice field.

They’ve sprinted up a steep hill beside the football complex and they’ve sprinted in an outdoor sandpit named “Stucky Beach,” for the late strength coach John Stucky.

They’ve even carried teammates on their back for 50 yards, then switched for the next 50.

It’s been a full menu of running, lifting, pushing and toting.

“Johnny comes up with so many drills,” tight end Chris Brown told The Knoxville News Sentinel. “I swear, sometimes we think he just sleeps at night and dreams and wakes up and says, ‘I’m going to do that.’

“We’re used to it by now,” Brown added. “We just get after it.”

Long said that’s the point.

“Keeping it fresh and interesting is important because they spend nine months of the year with me,” Long said. “The most important thing I can do is to make sure they’re having fun, but at the same time competing and being in a competitive mode, and getting better and getting ready to play some football.”

Senior offensive tackle Eric Young said it’s been a good offseason.

“This is one of the most, if not the most, intense I’ve been around,” Young said. “We’ve stepped it up a notch this summer. Everybody’s grinding. Everybody’s just working, man.”

Inside the weight room, there’s a reminder of what it’s all about. A “Countdown to Cal” clock ticks off the minutes until the Vols open the season Sept. 1 at California.