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SEC moves Tennessee football’s preseason practice start date to Aug. 17

By Caleb Calhoun

JACKSONVILLE, FL - JANUARY 02: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers looks on in the first half of the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl against the Indiana Hoosiers at TIAA Bank Field on January 2, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
JACKSONVILLE, FL - JANUARY 02: Head coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers looks on in the first half of the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl against the Indiana Hoosiers at TIAA Bank Field on January 2, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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Due to COVID-19, the Southeastern Conference moved Tennessee football Volunteers’ August fall camp preseason start date.

Fall camp has been moved back for Tennessee football. With the SEC’s new schedule amidst coronavirus, the league announced Tuesday that the first day teams would be allowed to practice would be Monday, Aug. 17.

That’s 10 days after the NCAA calendar initially allowed fall camp to begin, which was Friday, Aug. 7. This is part of the conference’s new schedule as a whole, which will start the season on Saturday, Sept. 26 and have the league go to a 10-game all-conference schedule.

Given this date, teams will have five full weeks of practice before their first game. Tennessee football also had a bit of an advantage with a couple of spring practices before the virus shut everything down.

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Between Aug. 7 and Aug. 16, teams can have up to 14 hours a week of strength and conditioning, meetings and walkthroughs. They will be allowed to hold 25 practices between Aug. 17 and the start of the season.

Throughout those 25 practices, teams are only allowed 20 hours of practice time a week. Athletes must be given a minimum of two days off each week as well, and there must be a five-day “acclimatization” period, where two days of practice are in helmets only, two days are in shells and the fifth day is in full pads.

With so much talent returning, Tennessee football already had a built-in advantage over a lot of other SEC schools amidst this offseason. However, this number of practices should have most teams ready to go by the start of the year.

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The Vols still have a lot of experience that should come in handy, though. How much of an impact the long layoff had could be an issue, but five full weeks is plenty of time to get everybody back into proper shape. Jeremy Pruitt and his staff have done a great job on the conditioning side of things ever since they took over Tennessee football. They should be fine dealing with this as well.

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