The Tennessee Volunteers are scheduled to report for preseason football practice Tuesday, with the first workout set for Wednesday morning.
A couple of veteran players will not be among them.
Sixth-year senior tight end Austin Pope and fifth-year offensive lineman Riley Locklear have decided not to be a part of Josh Heupel’s first season in Knoxville due to lingering medical issues. Pope underwent a second procedure for a herniated disc last summer that resulted in him sitting out last season, while Locklear was banged up throughout last season and played very sparingly.
Pope, a 6-foot-4, 235-pounder from Knoxville, played in 33 career games with 14 starts, notching seven receptions for 85 yards. Most of that production came on a 55-yard catch at Florida as a redshirt sophomore in 2018. After graduating last December, Pope entered the NCAA transfer portal but elected to remain with the program before spring practice.
Locklear was a four-star signee in 2017, the year after Pope, and started as a freshman during the two games Brady Hoke served as interim coach, which were losses to LSU and Vanderbilt. The 6-4, 300-pounder from Huntington, West Virginia, played in 10 games overall during his first two years and 11 more in 2019, when he started against Georgia State and Georgia.