Tennessee football’s top 10 injury concerns for 2020

Initially, Emmit Gooden was on here. Gooden was coming off a season-ending injury in 2019 and expected to be a force on Tennessee football’s defensive line. However, an off-the-field incident resulted in Gooden’s dismissal, and that same day, tight end Austin Pope revealed on Twitter that he had back surgery for a herniated disc. As a result, we have replaced Gooden with Pope.

This isn’t the first time Pope, a 6’4″ 235-pound local product from Christian Academy of Knoxville who was entering his fifth-year senior season, has battled injuries. He played through a bunch of minor ones in 2019, demonstrating his toughness at the time, and had other issues in his back before then, which makes this an even greater concern.

Before this issue, though, all the little injuries seemed minor enough for us to leave him off the list. Now, however, he replaces Gooden in our top five, as Gooden being off the team makes his injury concern irrelevant for UT. Pope, meanwhile, is critical to the Vols. With the departure of Dominick Wood-Anderson, he is the only tight end with any significant experience returning.

Now, Princeton Fant did play as a reserve last year. But Pope started almost the whole season and was the primary run-blocking tight end. Without him, Jeremy Pruitt and Jim Chaney will have to turn to Fant and fifth-year senior Jordan Allen, who just converted from edge rusher to tight end this offseason. Allen himself is on this list as well. So the Vols could be in trouble here.