There was a moment when I realized Tennessee was all in on Tyson Helton.

No, it wasn’t when the Vols hired the USC quarterbacks coach. After the fiasco that was Tennessee head coaching search, it was a bit anticlimactic to see the program not have to rack up tens of thousands of frequent flier miles to find someone to run the offense.

Helton was still considered by many a solid hire because of the work he did with Sam Darnold. At the same time, hiring a quarterbacks coach as an offensive coordinator at a big-time program like Tennessee isn’t “stop the presses” stuff.

So what made me realize how serious Tennessee was about Helton? When I saw his salary.

A couple months after he was hired, Volquest reported that Helton will make $1.2 million annually. Yeah, that’s nearly double what Larry Scott made in the same position last year. And yeah, Helton is expected to have more than double Scott’s production.

That right there shows just how high the bar was raised for the Tennessee’s offense. Helton is at the center of that.

Sure, it’ll be the Jeremy Pruitt show on Saturday in the Vols’ spring game. But I’ll be locked in on Helton.

Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The good news for Helton is that even if his offense struggles Saturday, he has a couple of ways to calm nerves from anxious Tennessee fans. It’s still just a few months into running a new system. Every new coach/coordinator in America can lean on that crutch in the event of an underwhelming spring game.

The other thing on Helton’s side is that Stanford graduate transfer Keller Chryst won’t be in Knoxville until this summer. So not only does Helton have zero pressure to name a starter, but he has zero reason to show his hand.

In all likelihood, Helton will keep things as basic as possible for Jarrett Guarantano and Will McBride. Helton’s goal will be to get them comfortable in his offense. Pruitt’s goal will be to make sure his quarterbacks aren’t turning the ball over.

I’ve always wondered what you root for if you’re a fan watching an intrasquad scrimmage. For Tennessee fans, it’d be extremely encouraging to see Guarantano and McBride make quality decisions and sustain drives. A high-scoring spring game — under normal football rules and not some wacky points system — would be a sight for sore eyes. Shoot, just watching Guarantano not take hit after hit would be a sight for sore eyes.

Pruitt’s defense will be just fine, even if it spends the entire day playing on its heels. It’s Helton and this offense that really has some big-time questions to answer.

And while the passing game obviously needs to improve under a “quarterback guru” who’s being paid $1.2 million, Helton must improve Tennessee’s ground game. Tennessee’s SEC-worst rushing attack and 3.4 yards per carry wasn’t just a product of game flow. And that was with John Kelly.

It frustrates Tennessee fans to no end that they had playmaking backs like Alvin Kamara and Kelly the past 2 years, yet still didn’t have an elite rushing offense. It’s Helton’s job to make sure Tennessee finds better ways to establish the run (not deviating from a red-hot back on the goal line 4 consecutive times at Florida would be a start).

There are a lot of questions there, as well. Will Ty Chandler be the featured back after showing flashes as a true freshman in 2017? Or will we see someone like Princeton Fant, who has been going back and forth all spring, emerge Saturday? That remains to be seen.

Pruitt already sounds a bit desperate when talking about Tennessee’s backfield. He said that they “lack depth” and that they just need “able bodies.”

Pruitt may as well have said “go figure that out, new $1.2 million offensive coordinator.”

I say that tongue in cheek because I know Pruitt is still going to coach up the offense and this isn’t just Helton on an island rebuilding a group that finished No. 117 in scoring.

But money talks. Money dictates whether an assistant is going to have a major role, or if he’s just going to be another part of the team. With Helton, the money mattered. You don’t nearly double the salary of a position from one year to the next without some major expectations.

Will Helton earn every bit of that $1.2 million? We won’t know that for a while, much less by Saturday.

Still, Helton already has my attention.