KNOXVILLE — Tennessee will kick off the 2020 season in 16 days.
The Vols are still waiting to find out if Georgia transfer offensive lineman Cade Mays will be granted immediate eligibility to play this season.
Mays was denied immediate eligibility by the NCAA and Tennessee is currently appealing its decision.
UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt mentioned he has not spoken to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey about the matter, but has discussed Mays’ appeal with William King. King serves as the SEC Associate Commissioner for Legal Affairs and Compliance.
“I have specifically not spoken to Greg about it,” Pruitt said Thursday on a Zoom call with reporters regarding Mays’ appeal. “I obviously have spoken to William King, who represents the football side. I know how this goes. There’s all kinds of policies and rules that have been voted on over the years. I understand that the time that some of these rules were voted on, why they were. Here’s the but though, with what’s going on in our country right now, over the last six months with a pandemic, there’s probably not one family in America that has not suffered in the last six months. It’s unusual times.
“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. 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. 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.”
The 6-foot-6, 328-pound Mays competed in 25 games for the Bulldogs (2018-19), starting 18 contests.
In 2019, Mays started six games at right guard, two at right tackle, two at left guard and at left tackle in the Sugar Bowl.