Biggest questions
1. Does Jauan Jennings stay healthy?
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We already documented Jauan Jennings’s season-ending injury in 2017 and then his a subsequent injury after being reinstated on the team that held him out of the spring in 2018. Well it’s happening again. Jennings suffered a knee injury in summer workouts that required surgery.
He should be back for the season, but as Tennessee football’s best playmaker, that’s still concerning. The Vols need Jennings to be at his peak performance to be able to make a turnaround this year, and going through what he’s going through is getting off on the wrong foot.
2. How big of a leap did Josh Palmer take?
Being the No. 2 receiver in a bad offense last year doesn’t say much. But Josh Palmer did show glimpses of how elite he could be once he picked up the offense more. After all, he came from Canada and then had to transition from a spread offense to a pro-style.
He’s now in his second year with a pro-style, even if he’s under a different offensive coordinator in Jim Chaney, and in the process, Jeremy Pruitt named him most improved offensive player in the spring. If he took another leap, he could become a superstar receiver. So watch out.
3. What type of speed comes to the position?
Right now, Tennessee football is loaded with wideouts, and they’re using three in their starting rotation. Jeremy Pruitt is fine with adapting to personnel, and Jim Chaney has shown an ability to do that in the past. However, the Vols do need some sort of speed at the position to stretch things out, and none of the starters fully do that.
This is where Tyler Byrd and Jordan Murphy come into play. Chaney and Pruitt need one of them to immediately step in and fill a void. If they can, they will open up the offense in much greater fashion. But not doing so limits them a bit.