Tennessee football: Vols WR Jauan Jennings to have surgery, return for Fall

AUBURN, AL - OCTOBER 13: Wide receiver Jauan Jennings #15 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates after defeating the Auburn Tigers at Jordan-Hare Stadium on October 13, 2018 in Auburn, Alabama. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images)
AUBURN, AL - OCTOBER 13: Wide receiver Jauan Jennings #15 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates after defeating the Auburn Tigers at Jordan-Hare Stadium on October 13, 2018 in Auburn, Alabama. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee football wide receiver Jauan Jennings suffered a minor knee injury. The Volunteers junior should return for Fall camp after surgery.

One of the last things Tennessee football needs happened this week. It has become a minor setback for the Vols at the moment, and everybody is praying that it doesn’t turn into something much more dangerous.

Wide receiver Jauan Jennings, who figures to be the No. 1 option this year as a fifth year senior, injured his knee during a workout, according to reports. He is now expected to have surgery to repair it.

However, for now at least, it only appears to be minor. Jennings is expected to be back and ready to go by the start of Fall camp. Trey Wallace of Fox Sports Knoxville tweeted the news out on Thursday morning.

Once a four-star commitment at quarterback for Butch Jones’s system, Jennings proved himself to be a team player by immediately converting to wide receiver. In 2016, he became a major playmaker for Tennessee football as the No. 2 option to Josh Malone, catching the go-ahead touchdown against the Florida Gators and the Hail Mary pass to beat the Georgia Bulldogs.

The reason this is such a scare is because Jennings has had injury troubles since then, however. In 2017, he suffered a season-ending wrist injury in the first half of the Vols’ opener against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

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At the end of the year, after the drama of him being dismissed and then reinstated, he then dealt with another injury that kept him out during the spring of 2018. When the season began, Jennings took a few games to return to his usual playmaking self because of those injuries.

As a result of all this, it’s pretty obvious that even saying Jennings’s injury is minor is not going to make this any less unsettling for Tennessee football. He already has had too many nagging issues in the past, which is why he’s a fifth-year senior do begin with.

The Vols do have other playmakers at receiver, to be fair. In fact, they’re loaded with guys like Marquez Callaway, Josh Palmer and even Brandon Johnson. But Jennings is supposed to be the top guy in the rotation.

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There was tons of excitement about what new offensive coordinator Jim Chaney could do with Jennings’s talents, so any injury would be devastating. Nobody is going to relax until he is fully ready to go for sure.