Tennessee football: LB Will Ignont leaving Vols for personal reasons
Junior inside linebacker Will Ignont is gone from Tennessee football. Jeremy Pruitt said the ILB is leaving the Volunteers for personal reasons.
One day after the report that two Tennessee football players entered the transfer portal, the answer to the reason for the third Vol not being at practice that day has been revealed. Junior inside linebacker Will Ignont has left the team.
Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt said during the SEC teleconference Wednesday morning that he left for “personal reasons,” according to Patrick Brown of GoVols247. However, his name was not in the NCAA transfer portal Wednesday morning.
Ignont’s departure comes one day after another Vols junior inside linebacker, Shanon Reid, entered the NCAA transfer portal. Reid joined redshirt sophomore wide receiver Jacquez Jones in the portal, and all three of these players were absent from Tuesday’s practice.
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At 6’1″ 225 pounds, Ignont was expected to be a contender to start at inside linebacker for Tennessee football this year and see significant action after injuries forced Darrin Kirkland Jr. to retire and Daniel Bituli missed the first part of the season. The Huntsville, Ala. native did appear in the first three games and had 15 tackles while starting in the first two.
However, his role got severely reduced after Bituli’s return, as true freshman linebacker Henry To’oTo’o has been the other guy to start alongside him. Meanwhile, the emergence of converted running back Jeremy Banks and true freshman athlete Quavaris Crouch alongside the potential of J.J. Peterson all were likely to limit Ignont’s playing time in the future.
As a result, Ignont was not on the travel roster when the Vols traveled to Gainesville to face the Florida Gators. With his departure and Reid entering the transfer portal, the only other starting contender from Tennessee football’s spring practice who remains is Solon Page III, but the redshirt sophomore has not yet acquired any stats this season.
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Pruitt noted in the offseason that the Vols were on the potential side of things when he talked about their development, and that was no truer than at inside linebacker. But with two losses there, they are starting to get thin. The young guys need to begin to emerge and progress as quickly as To’oTo’o is if Tennessee football is to get any sort of momentum this year.