The Volunteers are banged up.
Tennessee is limping down the home stretch, both in the win/loss column and on the injury report. Thankfully for the Volunteers, a 2-9 overall Vanderbilt team will serve as the opponent to end the regular season.
Josh Heupel will have to string some lineups together with several different key injuries to account for. Those issues start up front on the offensive line, which has been an issue for the last couple of weeks. Both starting tackles, John Campbell and Gerald Mincey, missed against Georgia. Reserve tackle Dayne Davis was banged up during the game.
“Hope to have both of those guys available in this one,” Heupel said of Campbell and Mincey. “We’ll kind of see how they go through the week and where they’re at before we get to kickoff, but certainly hope to have those guys available.”
JJ Crawford filled in against Georgia and likely will see plenty of time in this one, regardless of who is available.
Tennessee will also be without standout guard Javontez Spraggins, who also went down against Georgia. Heupel announced that Spraggins will be out for the season on Monday.
“Spraggs will be out the remainder of the season,” Heupel noted. “Unfortunate injury, a guy that pours into his teammates, has great energy, competes extremely hard, plays really hard, continued to get better as a player. Disappointed for him, certainly.”
Expect to see Jackson Lampley and Addison Nichols filling in here.
Onto the secondary, where Tennessee is also struggling. Kamal Hadden has already been lost for the year, while Doneiko Slaughter has been pushing through injuries of his own. Against Georgia, STAR Tamarion McDonald wasn’t able to go — neither was safety Wesley Walker. Jourdan Thomas, who was filling in for McDonald, was hurt during the game.
It’s bit of a mess, and that mess will likely carry over into Saturday.
“We were hoping that T-Mac would be ready to go as we went through warmups,” Heupel said. “Just wasn’t in position to play. Hope to have those guys ready to go in this one. Wesley’s probably more questionable than the other guys.”
Andre Turrentine got the start for Walker last week. We’ll see what happens with the STAR spot during warm-ups.
Add all of this into previous season-ending injuries — Bru McCoy, Dont’e Thornton and Keenan Pili — and it’s been a rough year on the injury front for Tennessee.
Despite all of that, per DraftKings SportsBook, Tennessee is still a 27 point favorite over a Vanderbilt team that has dropped nine straight. There are lots of moving parts here, including the prospects of getting true freshman Nico Iamaleava some significant playing time. We’ll see.
One thing’s for sure — Josh Heupel is ready for his group to get a month off ahead of the bowl game.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday on SEC Network.
Odds/lines subject to change. T&Cs apply. See DraftKings.com/sportsbook for details.