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Four downs: Mays clears first hurdle, pass rush, passing game needs to grow

Tennessee offensive lineman Cade Mays is one step closer to seeing the football field this fall. Mays, who transferred from Georgia in January, won his NCAA appeal for immediate eligibility on Thursday.

Thursday’s win was from an appeal filed after his first waiver was denied last month. So the NCAA says Mays can play, but that’s the first of two steps as Jeremy Pruitt explained.

“Today we heard back from the NCAA. They approved Cade’s appeal. This has always been a two step process,” Pruitt said. “The next thing is the SEC. It’s good that our governing body decided to allow him to play. I haven’t had a chance to talk to Greg (Sankey) much about it. I know this. Everything from this pandemic, Greg Sankey has done a great job from a leadership standpoint with everyone in the conference. His number one thing has always been his protection of the players and putting our student athletes first. I have a lot of confidence in the outcome.

“I’m not sure exactly sure on all the rules on NCAA transfers. We might be the only conference or they might all be this way when it comes to transfers in the conference. I don’t know. I do know that the SEC in the past has not allowed that. So this would be a waiver through the SEC.”

Pruitt said he has a lot of conference in the outcome but it should be noted the outcome is by no means a slam dunk. The SEC has always disapproved or discouraged transfers within the conference. In fact if Mays were to win, Pruitt said it might be a first for the SEC for a non grad transfer.

“We have always known that (SEC has to sign off). It’s the way the protocol has set up. I have been on the other end. I think the first time was in 2016, now it was a grad transfer but at that time nobody was allowed to transfer within the conference. I think Mo Smith who was a defensive back for us at Alabama transferred to Georgia and he was granted a waiver. Brandon Kennedy was a grad transfer. I think this would be a first,” Pruitt said.

There’s no timetable on a decision from the league office and Tennessee is not the only school waiting on a ruling. Ole Miss is as well.

Pruitt has made it clear for a while that all transfers should be immediately eligible given the uncertainties of this year.

“To me, there’s a big part of all of this that I’ve been very concerned about with all of our players and all of our young people, is mental health. I can’t imagine being a child from five or six to age 25 or 30 that they feel like their youth is being taken away, the things that they’re used to doing,” Pruitt said.

“So, with that, everybody that’s playing NCAA football this year, their eligibility doesn’t count, so everybody on our team can come back and play another year. A senior can be a senior again, a freshman can be a freshman again. This is not just about Cade (Mays). I would say everybody that tried to transfer, to me, it would be foolish for anybody that’s capable of enabling this, it would be foolish of us not to do that just for what’s right.”

BRINGING THE JUICE

Pruitt said he was pleased with his team’s energy and work on the practice field on this noting that’s the most complete his team has been in a month.

“We got in some good work today. It seemed like we had a lot of juice out there, so that was good to see. We got a lot of guys back. This is the most guys we’ve had on the practice field since the third practice of camp. It’s good to see guys out there. We got a lot of guys that got to get a lot of work in the next nine days, and they’ve got to put in time to do it. But, it was two good practices in a row.”

Pruitt noted COVID numbers on campus have been improving and said he’s made it clear to his team they must be smart with the season starting in a little over a week.

"I hope that we’ve reached a spike on our campus. I think it’s been pretty evident across the country that when you have large gatherings of people for the first time there have been spikes. Our numbers have really gone down across our campus. We have a lot of guys back. Again, we’ve not had that many COVID cases, but we have been caught up in contact tracing. Most of our guys are back now, and we’ve got to continue to make sure that they really defend themselves. We can’t be put in a situation that we can get it or be put in contact tracing.”

Two of those guys back were offensive lineman Wanya Morris and defensive tackle Aubrey Solomon. Pruitt said both need a lot of catch up work before next Saturday’s opener at South Carolina.

“Both of those guys have been hit with the quarantine, Wanya (Morris) twice. He practiced today. I think it’s the second time he’s practiced in 23 days. Aubrey (Solomon) was out there today. They’ve got a lot of work to do. Hopefully, we can get some plays out of them next Saturday. That will be determined based off of the next week.”

When asked about guys not available next week, Pruitt indicated no one was out at this point due to quarantine, but that some guys would be out due to injury. Pruitt didn’t want to name names, but did confirm that Austin Pope will not play and is out indefinitely.

LOOKING FOR A PASS RUSH

Pruitt has been critical of his defensive line throughout fall camp saying he’s looking for more production starting with more effort. On Thursday when asked about the status of his pass rush, Pruitt described it as work in progress.

“That’s a good question. It’s definitely not where we would like for it to be,” Pruitt offered. “That's one thing we really got to focus on over the next nine days. We had a lot of guys that have been in and out. It’s really our whole team. We have a lot of experience coming back and as these guys get back out on the field and get going, that’s a positive. With the experience we have, we have a lot of guys that have played a lot of ball for us. We just got to get them going and kind of got to get them back into the groove a little bit. We’ve got to do that tomorrow, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday and over the next four days. We got to have a lot of competitive reps at practice to get used to the game speed.”

FINDING A RHYTHM

Early in fall camp there was plenty of buzz about the young receivers and the Vol passing game. Some of that receiver buzz and gone quiet because that position group has been hit hard by quarantine from contact tracing. With that unit coming back in tact, Pruitt said they have to get their rhythm back quickly.

"We’ve really got to knock the rust off, so to speak, in our throw game,” Pruitt offered. “A lot of these guys have been out. Most of them were back on Tuesday and got some good work in today. We’ve got to continue to do that. It is one of the positions that we were hit with an injury bug and had some guys out so we have to get going there.”

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