KNOXVILLE — Tennessee’s tight ends unit is headlined by senior Austin Pope in 2020.
Pope announced he underwent back surgery on July 16. Following Tennessee’s third practice of fall training camp, third-year UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt mentioned that Pope has been practicing and “should be ready to play for the opener” at South Carolina on Sept. 26.
Offensive coordinator Jim Chaney discussed the Vols’ tight ends unit on a Zoom call with reporters during there second week of fall training camp.
“Austin is that, he’s a stabilizing force,” Chaney said. “He’s a good kid, been around football a long time. We like what he brings to the table. He will always be that consistent kid that we like.
“Behind him, we have Princeton Fant, who is a young man who bounced around a lot early in his career. We feel real comfortable where we have him right now doing what he needs to be doing. Jacob Warren is doing a fine job. There is a lot of competition in the room. They all have a little different skill set it seems like, it’s interesting to me. Behind him you have Jordan Allen and you got Sean Brown. You got some other guys that are just mixing around. There’s a lot of competition there, waiting on someone to jump above the other ones and emerge as a solid football player. They’re just continually learning. You’re talking about guys that haven’t played a lot of football for us in those five. That is a position that we are trying to force feed real fast on development and we are doing it, hopefully, through competition.”
