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Tennessee football out of Liberty Bowl due to COVID

By Caleb Calhoun

Tennessee players run onto the field at the start of the Alabama and Tennessee football game at Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn., on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020.Tennessee Vs Alabama Football 100152
Tennessee players run onto the field at the start of the Alabama and Tennessee football game at Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn., on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020.Tennessee Vs Alabama Football 100152 /
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Jeremy Pruitt and many Tennessee football Volunteers players tested positive for coronavirus.

A tumultuous season for Tennessee football that included a surprise invite to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis ended with a surprise cancelation of their appearance in that bowl game one day later. The Vols had to pull out due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the program.

According to UTSports, several players and staff members tested positive for the virus. Included among those positive tests was Jeremy Pruitt. UT was set to face the West Virginia Mountaineers in the bowl game on New Year’s Eve.

With this news, Tennessee football ends 2020 at 3-7, clearly a disappointing record for them compared to what they were expected to do at the start of the season. Pruitt released a statement on his test and the end of the year. Here’s what he said.

"“I am experiencing mild symptoms but doing fine. We are obviously disappointed that we will not be able to play in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, but the health and safety of our student-athletes will always remain our top priority. I am especially proud of our team and medical staff in safely navigating through a unique season where we played all 10 of our regular-season games.”"

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Obviously, there was already a lot of backlash against the Vols even going to the Liberty Bowl given their record and the fact that the Army Black Knights and SMU Mustangs, who are 9-2 and 7-3 respectively, weren’t going anywhere. However, there were less deserving programs than Rocky Top getting into bowl games.

Now, the Vols have to enter the offseason amidst a ton of turmoil, including anger at how this season went and the news of the NCAA probe into the program, which we wrote about here over the weekend. Honestly, even playing a game may have been far too overwhelming given everything that is happening within the program.

It makes sense that Tennessee football would be the school with an outbreak. According to CDC data, the state of Tennessee has the second highest rate of cases in the nation over the past seven days.

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Taking that into account, the flagship university getting set to travel across state to one of the two largest cities, where the worst COVID outbreak in the state is, to compete in a bowl game could have been disastrous. It will be interesting to see how this plays out going forward.

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