KNOXVILLE — Jeremy Pruitt met with media Friday and discussed Tennessee’s football team through six practices in fall training camp.
Pruitt said that the Vols have “had six really good practices.”
“The last couple we’ve had a chance to put pads on,” Pruitt said on a Zoom call with reporters. “It’s been good for our guys, been good for our coaching staff, so a lot of really good work, lots of competition. When you put pads on you get an opportunity to finish blocks, you get an opportunity to thud guys in practice, lot more emphasis on ball security, getting balls out.”
Pruitt mentioned that the team was able to have “a chance to really work a lot on special teams” Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of rain here for a couple of practices and have not had a chance to get out there and kick balls, operation with the specialists, field balls, so that was really good,” the third-year UT head coach said. “We’ve got to continue to be able to do that. We feel like we have really good specialists, guys that can create explosive plays in the return game, so getting a chance to do that has been good to get out there and get going to do it.”
Pruitt elected to not have his team practice today as UT focused on testing amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“As you guys know, we continue to constantly test within our program and we have really had very good results the entire time with the exception of, like I said before, when I gave them eight days off for the Fourth of July,” Pruitt said. “But this week, we had a few more positive tests, so I elected to shut practice down.
“We retested everybody again this morning to see where we’re at. Our No. 1 priority here is to be able to protect everybody associated with our program and that’s what we’re going to continue to do. As we get the results back, we’ll see exactly where we’re at and we’ll start practice up accordingly.”