Josh Heupel feels Tennessee's bye week comes at the 'right time'
Through five weeks, Tennessee has suffered its fair share of injuries.
This has effected units all over the team. On offense and defense, players are banged up and have missed time.
However, now, the Vols have the opportunity to take a week to focus on their health. With a bye-week on the schedule before hosting Texas A&M, Tennessee will prioritize healing from these injuries.
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Head coach Josh Heupel says the early bye-week comes at the perfect time. The open week will help the team take the next step as they progress through the season.
“We’re a football team that needs to get healthy," said Heupel. "I usually get the question, is it coming at the right time? For us, right now, I would say it’s coming at the right time. We need to get healthy and get some young guys to grow. We've got to grow as a football team. Good teams continue to get better throughout the course of the season and we got to play smarter football and our margins just aren’t big enough to not do that. So we’re in control of that. Starts with coaches, starts with me, starts with our assistant coaches and then our players got to soak it up to.”
One of the areas that the Vols have suffered injuries at is the offensive line. Star center Cooper Mays missed every game leading up to the match with South Carolina. Andrej Karic was inactive for that match and Jeremiah Crawford never saw the field, as well.
While Ollie Lane, Gerald Mincey, Javontez Spraggins and John Campbell Jr. have appeared in every game, healthy depth could make a big difference.
“We’re just banged up up front right now a little bit," said Heupel. "Some unique things transpired during the course of the week and had a couple guys that weren’t available. Coop being back this week was absolutely critical for us to be our best. Ollie did a good job sliding out to the left (guard), Gerald back at right (tackle).
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"We were efficient. We weren’t perfect, but hit double teams. Running backs did a good job running hard. We pushed the piles, plays that were two went for four. Those are big hidden yardages in the way that the game’s played at the end of a set of downs. And Coop, his experience, his athleticism, his ability to communicate at a really high-level, all positives for us to go play our best.”
At wide receiver, Dont'e Thornton suffered a blow that held him out of the contest on Saturday, as well. The off-week could go a long way in getting him ready for the Aggies.
This is made even more important with the injury Bru McCoy suffered that will likely hold him out for the remainder of the season.
While some receivers like Thornton continue to heal, it will be an important week to prepare a new starter at the X-receiver position. It will likely be a young player in either Kaleb Webb, Chas Nimrod or Nathan Leacock.
“Not any different than the guys you’ve seen lately," said Heupel. "Kaleb Webb is gonna have to play at a high level. Chas Nimrod. Dont’e (Thornton) wasn’t available tonight. We should be able to get him back, get him going too. Nathan Leacock. So we got a bunch of guys that got to fill the roles and that’s the nature of this game. It inevitably happens. Next man up. They got to be ready for their opportunity. They got to go take advantage of it.”
This week, Tennessee will take Monday off before returning to practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Saturday will also be off-days.
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