Tag: Jackson Lowe

Jeremy Pruitt addresses Vols’ tight end unit

Jeremy Pruitt addresses Vols’ tight end unit.

KNOXVILLE — Game week ahead of the Sept. 26 season opener is approaching for Tennessee.

Tennessee practiced for the 16th time Thursday during fall training camp. Following practice, Jeremy Pruitt addressed the Vols’ tight end unit. It is a unit that saw redshirt freshman Jackson Lowe enter the transfer portal this week.

“The tight end position we are working several guys there,” Pruitt said on a Zoom call with reporters. “It is a competitive spot. There’s not much difference in the guys. How they go about their business every day, how they practice, how they compete, what kind of habits they’ve created. They control it. We want to play the best players, and we’ve got some guys who are competing hard there to do that.”

Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

The tight end group is coached by Joe Osovet this season. The unit consists of Austin Pope, Princeton Fant, Sean Brown, Jordan Allen and Jacob Warren.

Pope underwent back surgery in July. Pruitt mentioned that Pope “is not going to play right now.”

“We’re working Princeton Fant, Sean Brown, Jordan Allen, Jacob Warren, so we’ve got a lot of guys that are getting reps in there,” Pruitt said. “Most of those guys have played very little football for us, so they’ve got to work on their consistency, they’ve got to be able to block the C-area, they’ve got to play fast, they’ve got to be good communicators.

“That’s one position that you really need to be instinctive to have a feel because we ask the tight ends to do a lot. It’s a position where there’s lots of competition. I have confidence in all of those guys, but somebody’s got to separate themselves.”

KNOXVILLE, TN – SEPTEMBER 15, 2020 – Tight end Jacob Warren #87 of the Tennessee Volunteers during 2020 Fall Camp practice on Haslam Field in Knoxville, TN. Photo By Caleb Jones/Tennessee Athletics

A way-too-early preview of Tennessee’s tight ends in 2020

A way-too-early preview of Tennessee’s tight ends in 2020.

The tight end position is one that Tennessee has not gotten a lot out of in the past two seasons, in terms of pass-catching production.

Dominick Wood-Anderson came in out of junior college in 2018 as one of the top signees in Jeremy Pruitt’s first class, but ended his UT career with just 408 yards and three touchdowns on 38 catches over two seasons.

It is no secret that the Vols have utilized the tight end position as more of a run blocking tool, evidenced by the amount of playing time seen by redshirt junior Austin Pope in 2019. Pope started 11 games and played in all 13, but caught just four passes for a total of 21 yards. When Pope was in, the Vols were comfortable running behind him.

Pope is back for his redshirt senior year in 2020, with a few other unproven prospects waiting in the wings. Tennessee knows it has a solid group of blocking tight ends, but can one of them step up as a receiving threat in Pruitt’s third season?

Offensive coordinator Jim Chaney is no stranger to deploying two-tight end sets, and only one other member of the group brings back extended experience in 2020. As Princeton Fant enters his redshirt junior year, he will be asked to step in with more snaps towards the end of a college career that has seen him bounce from running back to tight end. Fant caught just two balls for 19 yards in 2019 while appearing in eight games.

The unknown quantities in tight ends coach Brian Niedermeyer’s room are the duo from the 2018 class, Sean Brown and Jackson Lowe. Brown at 6-foot-5, 241-pounds was the No. 40 tight end in his class in the 247Sports Composite, while Lowe was a 4-star prospect rated as the No. 12 tight end prospect.

Neither player made an impact for Tennessee in 2019, but will steadily be in the rotation in 2020 after the Vols missed out on highly-touted prospects Arik Gilbert and Darnell Washington.

An outlier in the group is rising redshirt junior Jacob Warren out of local Farragut High School, who was committed to Butch Jones as part of the 2018 class and stayed with the program when Pruitt took over. Warren appeared in limited action through five games in 2019, and has been working on improving his size since Pruitt arrived on campus. Warren is now measured at 6-foot-6, 241-pounds on Tennessee’s official website.

Niedermeyer has proven to be an elite recruiter on UT’s staff, but has not gotten the production that was expected, particularly from the outgoing Wood-Anderson. Run-blocking will be a strength of the unit in 2020, but the ability to provide another option for whoever is operating under center for Tennessee is a question mark.