KNOXVILLE – The decision of former SEC-freshman-team linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. to leave Tennessee as a graduate transfer exacerbates a characteristic that new coach Jeremy Pruitt pointed out about his team this past week.
The Volunteers, Pruitt noted, are light on upperclassmen, which is why the coach believes the addition of graduate transfer quarterback Keller Chryst will benefit Tennessee – regardless of whether Chryst wins the starting job at his position.
“I think it will be good for our football team, because we’ve got a young football team,” Pruitt said during the Big Orange Caravan stop in Atlanta. “We only have nine seniors. I think some of these guys need experience. It can help them.”
Kirkland would have been a redshirt junior this season, and his rare combination of experience and talent made him a likely leader for a team that did not have an established nucleus of player leadership this spring.
As Tennessee navigated five weeks of football practices this spring, Pruitt expressed curiosity about what the eventual makeup of the team’s leadership will be.