Tennessee has needed a backup center in the recent past and hasn’t had one. Now, the Vols may have two.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that center Cooper Mays is one of the most important players on Tennessee’s football team. The Vols struggled mightily when he missed the beginning of last season, which included a loss to Florida.
Vysen Lang was thought to be the center of the future for Tennessee. While that may still happen, the redshirt freshman has some competition from William Satterwhite, a true freshman from Akron, Ohio, that signed with the Vols over Clemson and Alabama as a four-star prospect.
“Vysen has gotten better throughout the first little bit of camp,” Mays said. “He’s doing better. We’ve also got a new young guy, William Satterwhite, who’s also working at the center spot. He’s done a really, really good job as well, especially for being a young guy. Like, reminds me a lot of me and they’ve been doing a good job.”
No one would expect a true freshman to be ready to play in the SEC. However, Satterwite has the size at 6-foot-3 and 300 pounds to hold his own. He’s also more than just big.
“He’s athletic, undersized a little bit, you know, not as tall as me, maybe a little bit shorter,” Mays said. “Kind of about the same size I was weight-wise when I was young. Strapping, athletic guy, gets hands on and just tries to stick on them. And last and you know, I think he’s doing a really good job.”
Mays should know. He was named first-team, preseason All-SEC by the media at SEC Media Days.
“Really what it takes to be a good interior lineman, especially in the league that we play in the SEC, you’ve got to be twitchy, which is the first thing that I would look for,” Mays said. “You got to be able to do things very quickly. You can’t be slow off the ball. You got to be able to get off the ball really quick and and beat somebody to the punch.”
Sounds like Satterwhite is doing just that.
