Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt offered his share of specifics this past Saturday, when he revealed that a scheduled scrimmage had to be reduced to a practice due to 44 player absences.
Late Thursday afternoon, Pruitt’s specifics were replaced by frustration reflecting the continued challenge of trying to get a team ready for a season in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nobody was expecting a clean bill of health on the coronavirus front after Saturday’s report, but Pruitt seemed a bit more tired by the topic.
“We’ve had so many guys out that I can’t keep count of who’s available and who’s not available, and it changes by the day,” Pruitt said on a Zoom call. “To be specific on names – my days have really run together when it comes to that, so I probably wouldn’t be much good.”
Pruitt said last Saturday that the Volunteers had seven or eight absences due to active COVID-19 cases and that 27 or 28 were the result of contact tracing.
The Vols practiced Monday on Haslam Field and trekked to Neyland Stadium on Wednesday night for a scrimmage that Pruitt said consisted of roughly 40 situational plays. He considered the scrimmage “sloppy” but did single out fifth-year senior Ja’Quain Blakely and redshirt sophomore Kurott Garland for their improving play on the defensive front.