{"id":887873,"date":"2026-05-10T23:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T23:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/887873\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T23:45:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T23:45:19","slug":"thats-something-hes-had-to-get-used-to-joey-aguilar-is-dealing-with-the-same-hurdle-hendon-hooker-faced-as-a-rookie-in-the-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/887873\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018That’s something he’s had to get used to’ \u2013 Joey Aguilar is dealing with the same hurdle Hendon Hooker faced as a rookie in the NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joey Aguilar wasn\u2019t selected in the 2026 NFL Draft. Aguilar, however, quickly signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> as an undrafted free agent once the draft was over.<\/p>\n

Former Tennessee Vols quarterback Joey Aguilar is facing the same hurdle as a rookie in the NFL that fellow former UT quarterback Hendon Hooker<\/a> faced when he first turned pro.<\/p>\n

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Aguilar, who spent one season at Tennessee after transferring from UCLA<\/a>, wasn\u2019t selected in the 2026 NFL Draft, but he quickly signed<\/a> with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an undrafted free agent.<\/p>\n

The former Vol is taking part in his first rookie minicamp this week, and that means that he\u2019s learning all about quarterback cadences in the NFL.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Joey\u2019s done a nice job of learning a lot of information in a short period of time,\u201d said Jaguars head coach Liam Coen<\/a>. \u201cEspecially [since it\u2019s] so much different than he\u2019s used to. Just from a cadence standpoint, that\u2019s something that he\u2019s had to get used to doing over the last 48 hours.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think he did a nice job of running the show, if you will. I mean, these weren\u2019t all just running plays, either. \u2026 And I think he did a nice job operating (the offense). I thought he threw it better today, probably. He had never thrown to these guys ever. It\u2019s hard when you\u2019re asking them to be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aguilar, like most college quarterbacks, mostly relied on a clap at the line of scrimmage, instead of a cadence.<\/p>\n

Former Tennessee Vols QB Hendon Hooker also had to improve his cadence in the NFL<\/p>\n

Aguilar isn\u2019t alone in needing to improve his cadence as a rookie in the NFL.<\/p>\n

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Hooker, who spent two seasons at Tennessee, heard some trash talk <\/a>about his cadence from Detroit Lions<\/a> head coach Dan Campbell a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n

“I have no idea,” said Hooker to The Jet Press<\/a>\u00a0earlier this offseason when asked why college quarterbacks clap. “The more that I think about it, the more I’m like, \u2018That’s so dumb.’ Because when I was in college, I think we only used cadence one year when I was at Virginia Tech, and I was clapping on everything else. And then when I got to the NFL, Dan Campbell was like, \u2018Bro, your cadence sucks. You need to go work on your cadence.’<\/p>\n

“Every time we had a situational practice where we’re trying to draw the defense offsides, Dan would go, \u2018Hooker, get in there.’ And I would try to draw them offsides. If I didn’t draw them offsides, I had to do 50 pushups. \u2026 I came a long way from just having a rookie cadence to having a real cadence.”<\/p>\n

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This isn\u2019t something that\u2019s unique to quarterbacks from Tennessee.<\/p>\n

Former NFL head coach Jon Gruden has made sure to point out in recent years how much he hates that most college quarterbacks use a clap instead of a cadence.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t expect things to change for college quarterbacks anytime soon. The transfer portal has led to rosters that change dramatically from year to year \u2014 and rosters that also don\u2019t feature much depth \u2014 which makes the clap more efficient than teaching a new quarterback a cadence every year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Tennessee Volunteers quarterback Joey Aguilar wasn\u2019t selected in the 2026 NFL Draft. Aguilar, however, quickly signed with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[4955,2037,30919,113,7,1211,212,125,2401,213,20707,6,526,1541,116,2821],"class_list":["post-887873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-2026-nfl-draft","tag-carson-beck","tag-college-quarterbacks","tag-detroit-lions","tag-football","tag-hendon-hooker","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-jacksonvillejaguars","tag-jaguars","tag-joey-aguilar","tag-nfl","tag-tennessee","tag-tennessee-volunteers","tag-the-nfl","tag-undrafted-free-agent"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116552946395420052","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}