Spring Football Roundup: Butch Jones Begins at Tennessee; Casey Pachall Competes at TCU
By Kyle Kensing
September 29, 2012; Dallas, TX, USA; TCU Horned Frogs quarterback Casey Pachall (4) reacts during the game against the Southern Methodist Mustangs at Gerald J. Ford Stadium. TCU Horned Frogs won beating Southern Methodist Mustangs 24-16. Mandatory Credit: Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports
Tennessee Volunteers
New head coach Butch Jones and staff met with media on the eve of Tennessee opening its 2013 spring football camp. All For Tennessee highlights the key news, including Jones’ declaration that the competition to succeed Tyler Bray as starting quarterback will be determined by production rather than fitting a scheme.
Plenty of Vols are jockeying to start in 2013, including Nathan Peterman and Justin Worley. Peterman and Worley may have an upper hand with the repetitions they will get in spring practice, which AFT writes Jones called “controlled chaos.”
Spring football is the beginning of one of the more challenging undertakings a first-year coach faces in 2013. Jones is beginning his tenure with a Tennessee program that was long at the forefront of college football, but has suffered four losing seasons in the last five.
TCU Horned Frogs
Quarterback Casey Pachall, recently reinstated after missing most of the 2012 season with substance abuse issues, is competing to lead the TCU offense in 2013 per ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach.
Pachall entered a rehabilitation facility shortly after leaving the team in October. He received a DUI two months after revealing to national media that he had used cocaine and ecstasy. Gary Patterson allowed Pachall to return in January after completing “everything we wanted him to.”
Patterson told TCU360.com earlier this week as the Horned Frogs opened spring football that Pachall’s return would be “either a great story or a waste of time.”
BYU Cougars
BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall brought former offensive coordinator Robert Anae back onto the staff in an effort to shake up the stagnant Cougar offense. That’s precisely what Anae is attempting in spring football with what The Daily Herald reports is ramped up intensity.
Under Anae, the Cougars employed a potent passing game. He brought a similar philosophy to the Arizona Wildcats as their offensive coordinator in 2011. Jared Lloyd writes Anae’s goal is “getting up to the line and getting another play off in 15 to 20 seconds.”
The Cougars replace quarterback Riley Nelson this off-season. Promising young talent Taysom Hill returns from a knee injury that sidelined him shortly after assuming starting duties last fall.