Tennessee football: Five encouraging signs from 2021 spring practice

When spring practice began for Tennessee football, there were numerous concerns about the future of the program. It’s no secret that Josh Heupel is inheriting a mess. The Vols are coming off a 3-7 season, undergoing a coaching change and are in the midst of an NCAA investigation. That all resulted in a wave of transfers that further depleted the program’s talent pool.

Still, UT was able to show a few positives during spring practice. Based on what we all saw and what was being reported throughout March and April, lots of things were encouraging. That doesn’t mean Rocky Top will compete for a championship this year, but the program has a chance to make a solid first impression.

In this post, we’re going to break down why Vol fans should feel a little uplifted about those 15 practices and the Orange and White game. We’ll take everything into account to make our case, so let’s go ahead and dive in. These are the five positives from Tennessee football’s spring practice.

5. No serious injuries

There were players banged up throughout the spring. Prominent among them was junior college transfer running back Tiyon Evans, who is expected to be a feature back this fall. Another key area of injuries was on the defensive line, which became prevalent in the spring game and limited what Rodney Garner could do.

However, none of those injuries were serious, and nobody got hurt bad during spring ball itself. Make no mistake, given how depleted the Vols have become after all the transfers, this was a big deal. If they are going to have any chance of competing this year, they need to get as lucky as possible on the injury front.

Of course, there’s an entire fall camp to worry about and then the season itself, but the spring is the first hurdle. At this point, the Vols are relatively healthy as they enter the summer, and that’s a major positive for this program.