In his first season as Tennessee’s receivers coach, Kelsey Pope guided a starting trio of Jalin Hyatt, Bru McCoy and Cedric Tillman, with Hyatt becoming the program’s first Biletnikoff Award winner.
The second hand dealt to Pope has been much more challenging.
Hyatt is now with the New York Giants and Tillman with the Cleveland Browns, so Tennessee was going to be youthful at receiver to begin with, but young became younger when McCoy fractured and dislocated his ankle during the fifth game of the season. Despite the challenges, the Volunteers and their next wave of receivers are entering the home stretch of their 2023 schedule with a 7-2 record, a No. 14 national ranking and with a lot remaining on the table heading into Saturday’s showdown at No. 16 Missouri.
“The thing I love about Kelsey is that he’s the same guy every single day,” Vols head coach Josh Heupel said Wednesday. “He expects our players to prepare and practice extremely well, and he’s a great teacher. He’s somebody who, throughout his own football journey, can challenge guys but bring confidence to guys as they’re continuing to grow as players.
“That’s been really important with some of the youth that we’ve had at that position.”
The 31-year-old Pope was the youngest member of last season’s Tennessee staff and is the second-youngest member this season, with first-year tight ends coach Alec Abeln just 28. Pope has a fifth-year senior with Ramel Keyton, who has battled some issues with drops, but his other chief components right now are either in their second season in Knoxville — sophomore Squirrel White and redshirt freshmen Chas Nimrod and Kaleb Webb — or in their first — Oregon transfer Dont’e Thornton, who is a junior.
There is also Dee Williams, the senior punt returner who saw his first action as a receiver in last Saturday’s 59-3 dismantling of Connecticut.
“We’ve yet to peak, so as these guys continue to work, the best version of these guys we’ll continue to see,” Pope said this week in a news conference. “We’ve got a bunch of guys in new spots and a bunch of guys in new roles, but you’re seeing guys become more comfortable and make more plays as of late.”
White leads the Vols with 45 receptions for 556 yards, with his catches nearly doubling the 24 by Keyton that have yielded 412 yards. Thornton has only 12 catches this year but had three for 63 yards earlier this month at Kentucky, while Nimrod had his first career touchdown reception in Lexington.
Webb collected his first score in late September against the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“There were challenges last year as well, but obviously we’ve had some moving pieces with Bru going out and guys who were injured in the early part of training camp,” Heupel said. “We’ve had some guys who have been battling through injuries throughout the course of the season, but we’re at our healthiest that we’ve been in a while in that room.”
Pope, who starred at Samford University from 2010-13 and set a school standard with 250 career receptions, said McCoy’s injury was easily the biggest setback at his position this season but that it resulted in others having no choice but to step up.
It also gave him an instant assistant.
“Bru has been awesome for all these guys,” Pope said. “He’s always in the building. He’s in team meetings. As devastating as it was having him go down, I think it gave him a bigger voice.”
Burden questionable
Mizzou sophomore receiver Luther Burden III, who ranks seventh nationally with 106.4 receiving yards per game, suffered an ankle injury during the second quarter of last Saturday’s 30-21 loss at Georgia but continued to play.
Tigers coach Eli Drinkwitz raised some eyebrows Tuesday in his weekly news conference when he said the 5-foot-11, 208-pounder from St. Louis was questionable for Saturday’s game. Drinkwitz was asked Wednesday for an update.
“He was in a green jersey yesterday and didn’t take a whole lot of reps,” Drinkwitz said. “We’ll just have to see how he progresses. I won’t know more about that probably until after today’s practice, but I would anticipate Friday is the first time I’ll have a real feel on whether or not he’s going to be able to play or not.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.