After getting through an offseason unlike any in recent memory — extended time at home, socially-distanced everything, working out in gaiters, all of that — Jimmy Calloway was beyond excited to start the first training camp of his college football career. The former high school quarterback was all-in on playing wide receiver at the college level, and people in the Tennessee program expected the former Top247 prospect to make an immediate impact.
Calloway felt like everything was in place.
Then he pulled a hamstring muscle on literally the first day of camp.
As far as omens go, that’s less than ideal. Calloway fought his way back from the injury but struggled to earn a spot in the main rotation of a struggling offense on a struggling football team. He participated in eight of the Vols’ 10 games, but most of his reps came on special teams. Coaches said multiple times that they wanted to get the exciting playmaker more offensive touches in games, but he finished his freshman season with two catches and one rushing attempt.
The laid-back Calloway offered an understated take on everything about 2020.
“It didn’t really go as I planned,” he said.
Nothing about the season went the way anyone at Tennessee planned, and Calloway was no exception.
“My first day of camp, I pulled my hamstring, then I was really just fighting to get back the whole season,” he said. “I did (eventually) get in a couple of plays, but at that point, it was really set in stone. All I could do was just keep working and wait for my time. Then, when it came, get it.”
Opportunity arrived for Calloway in the spring. A new head coach (Josh Heupel), a new offensive coordinator (Alex Golesh) and a new wide receivers coach (Kodi Burns) arrived in Knoxville with a new offense and a blank slate for everyone in the program. Flush the past. Focus on the here and now. Get moving.
Calloway immediately started seizing the opportunity. The 6-foot, 190-pound sophomore emerged as a versatile playmaker in spring camp, and he’s done the same to start preseason camp. He’s fast. He’s smooth. He gets open. He makes things happen.
“It’s not really picking up where I left off [from the spring],” Calloway said after Thursday’s morning practice at Haslam Field. “It’s more improving on what I messed up on, and, like, really showing my talents more, understanding the plays, stuff like that. I mean, in the spring, it was all new, and I didn’t really know nothing.”
Veteran Velus Jones Jr. has said on multiple occasions that Tennessee’s new offense is a “wide receiver’s dream,” and Calloway shares that assessment. The work required to have that fun is immense, though. Playing wideout in a spread, silly-speed offense is physically grueling, and the Vols’ new staff offers no quarter on that conditioning front. No one stands still for a second of practice, and Calloway said he and his teammates learned that “the first day.”
“I ain’t ever ran so much in my life,” Calloway said. “You get no breaks. None. After that, it got better and better. … We run 100 percent of the time we’re in practice, through every station. They say, ‘If you’re in between the white lines, you have to be running. So … yeah, 24/7.
“While I’m doing it in that moment, I be dreading it. But then the next day, I come back, I feel like I can run longer. Or how I felt during this period yesterday, I feel 10 times better today.”
It’s hardly an enjoyable endeavor, but the pace has a purpose.
“What I really like the most is they allow us to get in open space and really, like, show people what we can do,” said Calloway, who was born in Connecticut but raised in Alabama before moving to Georgia late in his school career.
“It’s not really game-planning … like, making plays for certain people and stuff like that,” Calloway continued. “It’s just like you go in, you have this route, you have the option, do what you want. It’s pretty much your choice whether you take the opportunity or not.”
Tennessee has plenty of options at receiver at the moment, but Calloway since the start of spring camp has looked like someone who will have a role in the rotation. He’s uncommonly smooth for a player with his speed, and he shows a knack for getting himself into open space.
Calloway — who freely admitted Thursday that he’s also the Vols’ quarterback in their Wildcat package — shrugged when asked to explain why teammates rave about the smooth way he plays the game.
“That question, I can’t really answer that question,” he said. “I wouldn’t say … I mean, I’m not nonchalant, but I just feel like I’ll get there when I get there. Put it like that.”
Expectations outside the program aren’t high for Tennessee heading into the season, but Calloway said his confidence in his team mirrors the confidence he has in himself after a frustrating freshman season.
“Still very high. Ain’t never go low,” he said. “I’ve just got to understand the game more, because this is my first time really playing at this level.”
The hope on Calloway’s end is that he actually gets to play at this level this season. Barring another unfortunate setback like last season, it seems increasingly likely that he’ll do that.
“I just wait for my opportunity,” he said. “When I see the ball in the air coming towards me, I know that this is my time. When it don’t, I know I’ve got to fight and go block for somebody else to have their shine.”
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Smooth, confident Calloway emerging as playmaker at Tennessee - 247Sports
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