Stock Down: Darrin Kirkland Jr., LB
When you can’t see the field for drills or reps, then your stock is going to drop. And that’s the case with linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. right now.
Kirkland has been held out the last few days and missed the Vols’ second scrimmage due to “maintenance days” according to Jeremy Pruitt. Kirkland is still battle back from injury from last year and the spring, and he started things off well enough in fall camp. But he rarely participated in drills this past week, and despite “feeling good” on Saturday, he was held out of UT’s scrimmage.
Unless Kirkland is a full go and begins to show some of his old stuff over the next couple weeks, it looks apparent that he’s going to be on the bench for Week 1 and may not play as big of a role in the linebacker rotation to start the year as some have hoped.
