Jeremy Pruitt met with the media on Wednesday evening to preview the Arkansas game. Pruitt also updated the status of a few injured Vols and the starting quarterback.
The quarterback situation continues to be the hot topic around Knoxville, but Pruitt put to rest any notion that Guarantano wouldn’t be the starter.
“Jarrett (Guarantano) will be the starter. He understands our expectations. I’ve felt like he’s had another good week continuing to do the things that I’m talking about. Getting the guys around him to play at a higher level. It’s one thing on the offensive side; it takes all 11 guys to play together. Defensively, you can have a couple of great players, and they can make some plays sometimes; they’re erasers. But offensively, you can have 10 guys do exactly right, and maybe the left guard gets beat or doesn’t do it the right way and messes up the entire play. It only takes one guy that can mess up a play offensively. That’s why you have to play as a unit upfront. That’s why communication is so important, playing together, and that’s something that we have continued to focus on over the last couple of weeks.”
Jeremy Pruitt talked about what he wanted to see out of the backup QB’s, especially running the offense.
“The most important thing to me as a quarterback is getting the other 10 guys around you to be at their best. You want the quarterback to be at his best all the time, right. But there’s probably going to be days where maybe the quarterback’s not at his best. To me, that’s where leadership comes in. Getting the other guys to rally and be at their best. Also, when you go out on the practice field or during a game, having a feel of how practice is going or a game’s going individually. Understanding the guys that you connect with and maybe the guys that you don’t (connect with) but understanding who the other leaders on the team are that can affect somebody maybe you don’t connect with. I think all these intangibles are important. That’s something that I feel like you kind of have, but I also feel like it’s things that you can develop, and you can coach into guys and make them aware of it.”
Tennessee had themselves a Covid scare on Monday morning. The Vols initially received some positives from their Sunday testing, which prevented some folks from coming to the facility until they were tested again. This included a few coaches and some players. Jeremy Pruitt said they turned out to be “false positives” after further testing. He discussed the current round of testing, with one more coming.
“We still have one more test for this week, tomorrow. But right now, everyone is Covid free, so that’s good. I think it was an unusual deal, maybe at the testing facility. We went through the proper protocol with the SEC, and everybody came back negative.”
Jeremy Banks suffered a high ankle sprain during the early portion of the Kentucky game. Banks have continued to be limited in practice, even taking off last week, according to Pruitt.
“Jeremy really had an ugly injury, unfortunately early on in the Kentucky game. Hopefully, he’ll be ready to play this week; we kept him out of practice last week. He’s practiced for two days; today, he was pretty sore from it. It’s just one of those high ankle sprains that takes a little while to get over it. But he’s a tough guy; I think he’ll be ready to play some snaps on Saturday.”
The Vols will be back on the practice field Thursday as they continue preparing for the Razorbacks.
Continue following FOX Sports Knoxville for coverage of the 2020 season.
All images courtesy of Tennessee Athletic Communications
