Jeremy Pruitt Provides Health Update on Two Key Offensive Linemen
Wednesday night's "Vol Calls" was one of the more interesting shows of late. Jeremy Pruitt only fielded one phone question and one in-house question, however, he did provide several updates on his team, including the health status of two veteran offensive linemen.
Jahmir Johnson and Jerome Carvin have both played in two games for the Vols this fall, but neither have been able to sustain a level of health to allow them to play at the level it was expected. Both got the start against South Carolina, but Johnson left the game with an apparent hamstring injury. He has only appeared in the Alabama contest since. Carvin, on the other hand, started against Missouri but has not played since due to turf-toe.
Pruitt said on the duo, "Jahmir Johnson is back, ready to go, so that’s good for him. He hadn’t really played. He's played in two games this year. Played against South Carolina and Alabama. He played well in both of them. So he's back. Jerome Carvin, really who has played very little since the Missouri game, he's just been battling a really bad turf toe. He's closer. Those things are some of the worst injuries you can have, but he’s obviously closer now. So that’s good to see. When you have a couple weeks off there it gives you an opportunity to have guys who are banged up, get them some rest. When you’re playing back-to-back games, it’s just kind of a grind. So that’s been good for some of those guys as well."
Pruitt added earlier in the day during his final media availability, "They definitely have started back into the practice routine, so it’s looking promising. Hopefully, over the next two or three days they can continue to improve and get closer to 100 percent." He was also speaking on Alontae Taylor and Ty Chandler for that part, as well.
Tennessee (2-4) will travel to Auburn (4-2) for a 7:00 p.m. ET kickoff on Saturday night. The Tigers last game was canceled, and they have had multiple players with the virus or quarantined over the last two weeks.
