Vols coach Pruitt offers updates
KNOXVILLE – When Tennessee opened preseason camp, Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt said UT had a plan in place for a handful of players working their way back from injury.
For wide receiver Jauan Jennings and offensive linemen Chance Hall and Trey Smith, that plan did not include participating in the team’s Sunday first scrimmage. But Pruitt is hopeful to have Jennings and Hall ready to go when the next scrimmage rolls around.
“Hopefully, we will get a chance for both of them to scrimmage for the first time next week,” Pruitt said.
The first-year Vols coach said “nothing has changed” regarding Smith’s timeline. The freshman All-American is expected to be cleared for full contact by Aug. 19 or 20, as he works back after missing all spring reportedly due to blood clots in his lungs.
Both Jennings and Hall have been slowly increasing their work in practice, with Pruitt saying Jennings has been doing “really well” prior to a setback.
“The last couple of days, Jauan dove for a ball and got a little bit hyperextended,” Pruitt said Sunday. “We kept him out of the contact periods. He is running around. Chance has been taking some live reps. But we didn’t want to scrimmage him (Sunday). We wanted to kind of build into it. Based off the number of snaps at practices, he wasn’t there yet.”
Jennings, a junior wide receiver, missed the final 11 games of the 2017 season after suffering a wrist injury in the season-opener against Georgia Tech. He has been practicing in a limited capacity after an offseason knee procedure.
Hall missed all of last season and the spring with a knee injury. He was cleared to practice when UT opened camp, but Pruitt said the training staff had a plan to monitor Hall’s reps throughout the month-long preseason.
The junior offensive tackle started seven games as a true freshman in 2015 and six in 2016 before the injury bug hit.
“We’re just going to stick to the plan,” Pruitt said Thursday. “We know what we want. Obviously, they’re taking a few more reps every day and both guys are doing really well. They’re smart guys and they can learn in the meeting room. They can learn from somebody else’s mistakes, but both guys have not played football in a long time. …
“Just the daily grind. They’ve got to get back used to doing it and that’s why we’re bringing them along slowly.”