Tennessee received their first significant injury of the fall camp slate last week when starting veteran center Cooper Mays underwent a “minor procedure” according to head coach Josh Heupel.
Fortunately for Tennessee, though, Heupel said last week that he “anticipates” a couple-week deal for Mays. The Vols seem to believe that Mays will be back on the field for Tennessee sooner rather than later.
Heupel detailed an update on Mays’ status after the Vols’ second scrimmage in Neyland Stadium on Wednesday morning. Heupel made his statement while answering a question on if he believes Mays will be back for the opener or if the team is preparing to play without their starting center.
“We believe we will have an opportunity to have him back,” Heupel said about Mays on Wednesday. “Everything has gone well since he missed training camp and had the issue that he had. But, at the same time, and it’s true for every position, in particular the offensive line, you better have contingency plans. You don’t know when that’s going to happen, a guy gets an ankle – you guys have seen that since we’ve been here. So every week you’ve got to understand where you’re at going into the game, how you want to manage and play those guys if you’re healthy, but if something happens to one of those five guys, somebody gets knicked up, who’s the next in? How are you shuffling your front five if, in particular, a center goes down? So those are things that you work through every training camp and throughout the course of the season.”
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With senior center Mays out during fall camp, Tennessee has been using a rotation of guys at that position. Ollie Lane, Parker Ball, Vysen Lang, and Addison Nichols are all players that Heupel named when talking about that rotation last week.
“We’ve had multiple guys going at center like I said when I talked about Cooper being out,” Heupel said. “All those guys handled it – as far as the communication once they got the play call – in a really positive way. I think our protection, with the one group in particular, has been pretty sound for the most part. Those guys have got to continue to grow. We’ll find out as we continue to finish up training camp, where were at and who we’re running out there with, the first group, the first day, the first game.”
“I didn’t say a whole lot there, did I?” Heupel said with a laugh to close his comment on the offensive line.
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