Tennessee football: Why Warren Burrell season-ending injury is devastating
He hasn’t played since Tennessee football beat the Pittsburgh Panthers, and given how he has struggled at cornerback dating to last year’s Music City Bowl loss to the Purdue Boilermakers, Vol fans may not miss Warren Burrell. They would be wrong.
Josh Heupel said in his Monday press conference that Burrell, who became the Vols’ No. 1 cornerback after Alontae Taylor opted out at the end of last year, would be out for the season. He reportedly had season-ending upper body surgery.
Yes, Burrell has struggled as Tennessee football’s No. 1 cornerback. He just doesn’t have the athleticism to handle the other team’s best receiver. However, what everybody is missing is the fact that the Vols don’t have a No. 1 cornerback.
Burrell and Kamal Hadden are both at their best when they take on the No. 2 cornerback. There is just nobody on the roster either athletic enough or experienced enough yet to offset Taylor and fill the void he left.
The fact of the matter is the Vols are still in just their second year under Heupel, and all of the issues that he inherited naturally meant that some deficiencies still exist. Right now, those deficiencies are in the secondary.
What Burrell did bring to the table, though, was a level of experience and understanding that could help mitigate some of that lack of athleticism. He has started at least part of every season since his freshman year in 2019.
As a result, when he was out two Saturday ago against the Florida Gators, Anthony Richardson torched them. Tim Banks focused on keeping Richardson from winning with his legs and taking away the run game. Richardson responded by throwing for over 450 yards.
No, Burrell wouldn’t have stopped Richardson from having a good game. However, he could’ve stopped him from having that great of a game and worked to make sure Tennessee football’s victory was more comfortable in the end.
Sometimes, there is a degree of deficiencies. The Vols have a weakness at cornerback, one that Tim Banks isn’t going to be able to solve without simply adding more talent in the offseason. Still, that would have been manageable for Banks and Josh Heupel with Burrell.
Without Burrell, though, there’s a chance the weakness isn’t manageable. It could go from a deficiency to a massive issue that can’t be fixed. Again, just plug in that Florida team to see how many issues the Vols had without him.
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Cedric Tillman being banged up and having surgery is one thing. Heupel basically implied he’s day to day still. However, Tennessee football is deep enough at receiver, and Heupel’s offense is good enough to offset that. Losing Burrell is a different story, though. It’s not about him but the lack of talent behind him.