College Sports

New Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin has made a point to have his players in full pads for most of the fall workouts. And not just running around in the pads, but full-out hitting. His theory is that only through full contact can the players develop the game skills they need.

Tennessee fans everywhere rejoiced. One of the gripes against the former administration was that Phillip Fulmer tended toward safety and didn’t believe in full out contact on a regular basis.

The results? Tennessee will limp into the season with a ton of injuries.

Now,  I’m not suggesting that these injuries are solely the result of the full contact drills. Wide out Gerald Jones’ sprained ankle could have happened in any non-contact drill. And Kiffin isn’t the first coach to run full contact drills throughout the fall.

But for a team with limited depth, I’m not sure it was the right direction to go. Florida and Southern Cal can have a few good men go down and the next guy in line is ready to step up to the plate. But at UT, the ranks were thin, the talent even more thin, and now things are heading down a slippery slope.

Today’s news was perhaps the biggest hit yet: Center Josh McNeil will have surgery on his knee, and his future is in doubt.

Coaches have acknowledged all fall that they have ridden McNeil hard, and that his knees were in rough shape. Now they are looking at one of the leaders of the line being done for the year. And with the huge (continuing) question mark at quarterback for the Vols, losing an experienced center isn’t a best case scenario.

So the Vols will limp into their opener against Western Kentucky on Sept. 5. The Hilltoppers most likely won’t provide the competition level that will show UT’s weaknesses and holes, but with UCLA the following week, and pre-season #1 Florida after that, well, let’s just say Kiffin may be regretting some of those full speed drills.

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