Dormady impresses in spring game, takes commanding lead for backup job
- Wyeth Wilson
- Apr 27, 2015
- 2 min read
When Tennessee signed three quarterbacks in its 2015 recruiting class, signs immediately pointed to a three-way race for the backup job.
Quinten Dormady took a step ahead in that race on Saturday.
"It was a great feeling of being in the stadium in front of all those people,” Dormady said. “It was like everything I had heard and more.
“It was a good feeling, and overall, I think I performed pretty well."
Dormady finished the day with five of 11 passing for 96 yards and one touchdown, proving he was ahead of his freshman early enrollee counterpart Jauan Jennings.
“I thought they both did some good things [on Saturday],” Dobbs said. “They’ve done great things all spring, but I mean, it was great for them to show it out here on this stage.
“Quinten obviously did a good job managing the offense. He had the big play to (wide receiver) Josh Malone, which was great to see. Jauan did the same thing as well. He managed the offense, the plays he got, he made the most out of them and made completions and found plays and obviously, he had the big run which shows his athleticism. They’ve shown that all spring, which is great to see.”
In addition to his performance during the scrimmage, Dormady was impressive in a “quarterback challenge” just before halftime, which he lost to starter Josh Dobbs 8-7, but outscored Jennings, 7-2.
“Where my sleepless nights are is, 'Who's gonna be number two, and who's gonna be number three?',” Butch Jones said on the competition for the backup job. “In the world of college football you need more than one quarterback on your roster.
“You need a number of them, because you're one play away.”
“One play away” is a good way to describe the quarterback situation at Tennessee from years past.
Only in one of the past five seasons have the Vols used the same signal caller for the entire season, which illustrates the importance of having a prepared backup.
And at this point, it seems that backup would be Dormady.
“I thought for Quinten, from practice one to practice fifteen, continued to develop,” Jones said. “Some days, larger steps than others, but there was still an incline of moving up.
“I thought he did a very good job [on Saturday] of managing the offense, showing some collective calmness about himself, some poise playing in that type of situation, with 63,000, I thought he handled himself very well.”
The Vols are certainly holding their breath that the starter Dobbs stays healthy, but Dormady proved himself a worthy second-string on Saturday.
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