The best player projected to return for Tennessee football is still battling through injury.
Jermod McCoy, a Vols cornerback who is widely projected as a first-round pick in next year’s NFL draft, suffered an ACL injury this offseason. With the season-opener vs. Syracuse a month away and fall camp getting underway on Wednesday, Josh Heupel met with the media on Tuesday.
He provided the latest on McCoy’s injury status.
“No timetable on him,” Heupel said. “There are benchmark things that he’s got to accomplish within our training room to move on to the next phase of it. He’s handled it really well from the very beginning. Just his mindset and how he’s approached every single day. He’s done a really good job throughout the course of the summer. Periodically, you see his drills, movement, explosive-type drills that he’s doing, change based on his rehab protocol. He’s handled it extremely well. As we go through training camp, there’ll be a progression. How his body responds to some of those things will kind of dictate the time period of when he’s available for us.”
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Tennessee will open the season against Syracuse on August 30 in Atlanta. This gives McCoy another month of time to gear up if he intends to be ready for the opener.
Whether McCoy is or isn’t available to start the season, Rickey Gibson III will man one of the corner positions. On the other side, it’ll likely either be Colton Hood, a Colorado transfer from this spring, or Jalen McMurray in his second year with the program.
When healthy, McCoy is projected to start at cornerback opposite of Gibson. In his first year with UT, McCoy managed 44 tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss. He came up with four interceptions, as well, including a one-handed snag against Ryan Williams of Alabama and a circus catch in the end zone at Vanderbilt.
McCoy started his career at Oregon State after being ranked as a three-star recruit out of high school. He played his prep ball in Whitehouse, Texas, before making the move to play for the Beavers.
With Oregon State, he played in 12 games and started in five as a true freshman. He led the team with nine passes defended and came down with a pair of interceptions.
