Tennessee football’s spring practice for 2019 was not good news for everybody. Here are 10 Volunteers who did not benefit from it.
If there’s a winner, there’s a loser. That’s the rule of life, and it’s certainly the rule for Tennessee football. After lots of guys were able to prove their value in spring ball, it meant a few Vols ended up suffering.
After all, if you’re looking to win a starting job and your years on Rocky Top are running out, the last thing you want to do is fall behind in the spring. But that’s exactly what happened to quite a few players following Jeremy Pruitt’s second spring practice.
Tennessee football is more experienced, deeper and has better prospects this year than they did heading into 2018. As a result, the competition for playing time got more fierce everywhere except for defensive line, where they lost everybody.
With a ton of newcomers arriving this summer, including two junior college transfers at that one position of need, defensive line, spring was critical for a lot of players. And it did not go well for some veterans.
In this post, we’re going to analyze the 10 Vols who did not benefit from spring practice. These are juniors and seniors hoping to get a shot at starting or having significant playing time before their years in Knoxville end. However, the results of spring practice made it that much harder for them to work their way up the depth chart.
We’ll base our rankings on other players the coaches specifically touted, who was on the first and second team in the spring game and which players stood out in the spring game. The ranking will be a countdown all the way up to the person who lost the most.
This isn’t to say these guys are done. There’s plenty of room for improvement. But they now have a much steeper hill to climb, and they may want to think about transferring or taking a redshirt. So let’s break down who we’re talking about. These are the 10 Vols who did not benefit from Tennessee football’s 2019 spring practice.