Tennessee held its first preseason football scrimmage Saturday morning, but the excitement accompanying that first August journey into Neyland Stadium was tempered by the season-ending loss of junior safety Edrees Farooq.
While the Volunteers were scrimmaging, the university sent out a release stating the 6-foot, 202-pounder from Columbia, Maryland, tore the patellar tendon in his right knee during Friday morning’s practice. News of Farooq’s injury and being taken by ambulance to UT Medical broke early Friday afternoon.
“Everybody hurts — coaches, players, everybody in your program — when you see somebody have a real injury like that,” Tennessee sixth-year coach Josh Heupel said in a news conference following the scrimmage. “At the same time, I thought they responded really well the back half of practice yesterday and in practice today.
“It affects our depth, but I don’t think it affects the creativity of what we’re trying to do.”
The loss of Farooq is the second season-ending setback for Tennessee since preseason camp started, with sophomore linebacker Jaedon Harmon having suffered a torn ACL the previous Saturday.