Updating the rather stunning story that appears right below this one, Nick Stephens has spoken to the Knoxville News Sentinel regarding his departure from the Tennessee football program.
And, needless to say, the now-former Vols quarterback doesn’t come off as a happy camper.
Stephens said the demotion following an abysmal scrimmage performance took him by surprise, especially in light of the fact that he thought he had been performing well up until that 3-for-9, six-yard hairball he coughed up less than a week ago.
“It made me sick,” Stephens said of head coach Derek Dooley stripping first-team snaps away from him, effectively handing the edge for the starting job to Matt Simms. “It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to cope with in a long time, especially since I felt like up until that scrimmage I was having a really good spring. ...
“I was just playing uptight. I’d never really played like that.
“To me, it was like that was not fun but I felt like I had established myself pretty well in the seven practices before that. I wasn’t expecting any major changes. When that happened, I was surprised.”
For his part, Dooley disagreed with Stephens’ assessment that the QB was having a good spring up until the scrimmage and, in that light, his performance just compounded the issues the coaching staff had in the practices leading up to what turned out to be Stephens’ swan song with the program.
“It was a compilation of seven practices (and the scrimmage),” Dooley said. “Certainly, you give the scrimmage a little more weight because it is a game situation. The important thing is do you see a consistent trend when you evaluate. If someone has a bad scrimmage, if there wasn’t a consistent trend, maybe it won’t alarm you as much.”
As to where Stephens will land, the fifth-year senior told the News Sentinel that he’ll probably transfer to a school in his home state of Texas.