Former Gator Gerald Mincey feeling at home on Rocky Top with Vols

It’s late November 2021 and there’s a new coach in The Swamp. The Florida program is in turmoil. Gerald Mincey enters the transfer portal and is unsure of what his football future holds.

A few weeks later, the offensive tackle took an official visit to Tennessee and committed on the spot. Fast forward nine months to today, Mincey has started every game for the 3-0 Volunteers at left tackle and the redshirt sophomore is just days away from squaring off against his former team.

“Just knowing I was in kind of a weird situation a year ago with the coaching change and stuff,” Mincey told Volquest exclusively this week. “It will be great seeing them and going out there to play against them. I’m excited and I really can’t wait. I’ve been waiting on this moment since I transferred here. All the hard work and preparation has led up to this.”

It wasn’t a given that Mincey would be ‘the guy’ at left tackle. Sure, there’s a lot to like in Mincy as a player at 6-foot-6 and 335 pounds. That’s prototypical left tackle size, but no promises were made by the Tennessee coaching staff. Instead, he was told there was an opportunity there for the taking.

He took it.

“I was running with the threes and the fours back in spring, and I was like, ‘wow, that’s crazy.’ I like that I did that,” the lineman says in hindsight. “I was the new guy and had to earn everything that I got and nothing was handed out to me. There was a lot of hard work – after practice, before practice and just making sure that I understood the playbook and technique for the scheme of the offense. I’m still learning. Week-by-week, I’m getting better.”

According to Pro Football Focus, Mincey has graded out as Tennessee’s best offensive lineman in pass protection through three games. He’s yet to give up a sack, protecting the blind side of quarterback Hendon Hooker, for an offense that sits third in the country in both scoring and total yards.

“He’s been a pleasant surprise a little bit, probably just because you didn’t really know (what his performance would be),” offensive coordinator Alex Golesh said last week. “We knew he was just learning through spring. He was just learning through fall camp. He was really good in the pass protection part. He’s naturally gifted, super athletic, really long. I think he has really learned better than you could ask a first-year guy to do so.”

Everything has been new for Mincey and he’s handled it well, but the third-year college athlete knows there’s more work to be done.

“There’s a lot of teaching and instructing. I had to learn the offense and the technique is totally different,” Mincey reiterated to Volquest. “We run insert instead of straight outside zone or inside zone. It’s totally different. I’ve learned about my body position when I pass block – not leaning forward at the waist – and little, small stuff that takes my game to the next level.

“I’m feeling comfortable now, but it’s always a race to get better. Coach Golesh always says to be the best offense in the country, so I never look at it like we are 3-0 and I can relax. There are always areas to where I can get better and I’m just taking it a day at a time.”

It was around the second scrimmage of fall camp where it began to come together for Mincey. The tempo, the scheme, the technique that had been preached to him over the past seven months – it all just clicked.

Much of that had to do with the hands on tutelage of offensive line coach Glen Elarbee. On the practice field, Mincey began connecting with his coach – but it’s away from the gridiron where the 20-year-old gained much more.

“Off the field, I feel like we have a better relationship than on the field,” the tackle said. “I called him the other day to ask him how to jump-start a car. I don’t even look at my coach as a coach. I look at him more as a mentor who I could go and talk to about this life problem or something like that.

“When you have a coach like that, you’re willing to lay everything out on the line for him. You know that at the end of the day – win, lose or draw – he’s got your back.”

It didn’t happen out of high school, when Heupel’s staff first courted the three-star recruit while they were still at Central Florida. Mincey obviously chose Florida the first time around, but found his way back to Elarbee and company in the end. The decision to come to Rocky Top wasn’t automatic, but thanks hard work on his part, mentorship from coaches and a brotherhood created with the guys in the room – Mincey has found his home.

And now, he’s about to go up against his former teammates, playing better than he ever has.

“I joked with him a little bit today. He gets the chance to go compete against a few guys who he’s got a pretty good understanding of who they are and what they’re about. Give a little scouting report this evening on the front,” Heupel said in Monday’s press conference. “He’s played really well. I think he’s continuing to get better and more comfortable in what we’re doing. He’s executed really well in the pass game. (He) continues to get better in the run game too. I expect him to have a big ball game on Saturday.”  

At the end of the day, the transfer isn’t trying to make Saturday’s game more than what it is. He will go out there and play his assignments with hopes of doing his part to help an offense that routinely lights up the scoreboard. Still, there’s meaning to this game – for him and for his new family.

“We prepare the same way regardless of who we play,” Mincey concluded. “I can say that it does mean a little bit more because it’s a rivalry game. We haven’t beaten them since 2016. I’m trying to help change that on Rocky Top.”