Season of thanks
Vols’ Tuttle glad to be playing late in schedule
KNOXVILLE — For the first time in his college football career, Shy Tuttle has made it to November.
Not only is the junior defensive tackle still healthy as Tennessee enters the last quarter of its schedule, starting with Saturday’s game at Missouri, Tuttle is playing arguably the best football of his career.
More than his five tackles in last week’s 24-10 win over Southern Mississippi, what impresses Volunteers coach Butch Jones about Tuttle is everything he overcame in pursuit of a return to football that seemed uncertain this time last year.
“This individual has been through so much,” Jones said Wednesday.
After breaking his leg in October of his freshman year, Tuttle was carted off the field with a serious knee injury during Tennessee’s loss at South Carolina last October. The former five-star prospect had already worked for months to return from one debilitating injury. Now he was faced with the prospect of doing so again.
“It’s been a very challenging process,” Tuttle said this week.
But Jones said Tuttle, who has started the past two games, never wavered in an ongoing rehabilitation process. People see Tuttle on their televisions again and hear his name called over the public address system in Neyland Stadium.
But they haven’t seen the time spent to get there.
“We live in a SportsCenter society,” Jones said Wednesday night on the “Vol Calls” radio show. “We go home at night, we turn on SportsCenter and all we see are the highlights. But we never see the work behind the scenes that went into that individual making
those plays and the inordinate amount of times that Shy was in the training room and nobody else was there and working his way through and being mentally tough. I think it’s a really remarkable story.”
Tuttle’s tackles total against Southern Mississippi tied his single-game career high, and he also had 1.5 tackles for loss a week after recovering a fumble against Kentucky. Even for a player who said he never had any doubts about his ability, the productive games have helped his mindset.
“I mean, you start to feel like you’re being productive and stuff,” Tuttle said. “You walk a little different, you play a little different. It’s a big confidence boost.” Tuttle described his second rehabilitation as a “challenging process” and acknowledged sometimes it can be difficult not to think about his injuries.
“But everybody goes through adversity and stuff, so I guess that was just my challenge,” he said.
That’s the attitude Jones praises. Last month, Jones said many players “never recover”
“But everybody goes through adversity and stuff, so I guess that was just my challenge.” — SHY TUTTLE
from injuries of the type Tuttle has endured.
But here he is, playing football in November for the first time in his college career.
“I think he’s going to do nothing but continue to improve and get better and better,” Jones said. “It’s a testament to him. He’d probably be the first to tell you he’s getting better and better. He’s still got a ways to go in some areas. But it’s a tribute to his hard work.
“Really, it’s his determination.”