Tennessee, like many other college programs across the country, has ongoing battles at more than one position. One of them has been left tackle this offseason, but it seems that one is winding down after head coach Josh Heupel’s press conference this week.

Looking at the battle for the starting left tackle position, Heupel said he sees Florida transfer offensive lineman Gerald Mincey and Jeremiah Crawford to be playing against Ball State and through the remainder of the season.

“We’re going to need both of them, all of them,” Heupel said Sunday, and referred to injuries across the board as the reason to build depth. “Those guys are continuing to compete, that’s not going to stop after today. … Who gets the majority of that, or what the percentage breakdown is, we’ll continue to evaluate as we go through. Both of them have made a bunch of progress since the beginning of spring ball, an really since the beginning of training camp and understand what we’re doing offensively.

Crawford was with the 1s on offense during the open sessions of practice last week, though that’s not necessarily an indicator of who has the upper hand, as Heupel said the competition has been “back and forth” up to this point.

As for the right tackle position, Darnell Wright is set to remain there as the starter. It will be interesting to see how things shake out with the season-opener just around the corner and a lot of excitement surrounding what seems to be a quickly rising Tennessee program.