Tennessee football vs. ETSU: 5 Vols to watch for against Buccaneers
Tennessee football opens its 2018 home schedule against the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers. Here are five Volunteers to watch for.
After a brutal first game against the West Virginia Mountaineers, Tennessee football goes in the opposite direction for their home opener. The Vols will be facing an FCS opponent with a chance to get Jeremy Pruitt his first win as a head coach.
The East Tennessee State Buccaneers are heading to Knoxville in a game with numerous connections. Former UT offensive coordinator Randy Sanders is leading ETSU in his first season as head coach, and they are coming off a dominant offensive performance in their opener.
Sanders was the offensive counterpart to Jeremy Pruitt when they both worked together with the Florida State Seminoles, and both were hired by Tennessee football athletic director Phillip Fulmer at some point in their careers. So, taking all that into account, this is a very interesting first match-up between the two schools.
The Vols didn’t have that many positives or standout players from their opening-game loss. This week, they’ll want to get more of a rhythm going on both sides of the ball, at least to give us a hint as to which players deserve standout praise.
As we get set to take a look at the key players for Rocky Top heading into this game, it’s important to note that we’re changing our criteria a bit. You assume this will be a sleeper victory for the Vols, so that means that what’s important here is getting lots of guys experience.
Pruitt and his staff still need to know who can play and compete. That was hard to find out after just one game. Now, with a much easier opponent to face, the Vols have a great chance to find out a bit more about their team in their home opener.
Of course, playing ETSU won’t reveal that much about the Vols. But it will at least give them an idea of how good some players are. So let’s take a look at those guys. These are the five Tennessee football players to pay attention to in their home opener against ETSU.