No more drops for Tennessee tight end Ethan Wolf

Nothing makes Ethan Wolf feel worse than a football on the ground. Well, he does feel even worse if he's the guy that dropped it there.

In three seasons as Tennessee's tight end, Wolf has caught 67 passes. The first pass he catches in 2017 will tie him with Jason Witten on the school career tight end chart. Around UT, that's elite company.

But Wolf, the coaches and discerning fans know the big Ohio native would already have passed Witten if he had held on to a more balls in 2016.

"It's uncharacteristic for me to drop footballs like that,'' Wolf said Thursday, "and I feel like everybody knows that. My goal this spring is to not have one ball on the ground. So far, I think I'm perfect and we're going to try to keep that going through 15 practices and all the way through camp and have a perfect record.''

UT's stats don't provide a number on dropped passes and there weren't actually that many. But there were enough to get under Wolf's skin through the months between the Music City Bowl and spring practice.

"Other than getting bigger, faster, stronger, that was one thing that just ate me alive,'' he said.

A 20-yard over-the-shoulder, finger-tips touchdown catch against Florida was the kind of play that illustrates why Wolf was on the John Mackey Award preseason watch list as a junior. He's been steady from the day he started his first collegiate game in 2014, catching 21 balls as a freshman and 23 as a sophomore.

A lot of folks thought he'd go to another level last year but a drop here and there left him with another 23-catch year. Several factors could line up in favor of Wolf having a big senior season.

There will be an inexperienced quarterback and a number of young wide receivers in the rotation. A 6-foot-6 senior tight end might be a lighthouse beacon offering safe harbor when the first option fails to materialize in the heat of battle.

Too, Larry Scott, Wolf's tight end coach last season, was promoted to offensive coordinator. He's calling plays. After two days of spring practice, Wolf approves of the tight end involvement during team drills.

"We're doing a good job of executing plays when they're called,'' he said. "We're going to continue to do that through the spring and hopefully build up some confidence in the position.''