Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt has canceled Friday’s practice due to coronavirus concerns, after what he called “a few more positive tests.”
Pruitt said he decided to cancel practice and have everyone tested again, and that their top priority is protecting everyone in the program.
Pruitt had adjusted the schedule for Saturday to allow his players to take part in an on-campus march against racism, and the Vols might not practice then either if they can’t track down the source of the latest positive test results.
Tennessee has had good testing results with the exception of when the Volunteers returned after eight days off for the Fourth of July holiday. Then results returned more positive tests, so Pruitt said he shut down practice.
“We retested everybody again this morning to see where we’re at,” Pruitt said. ”Our No. 1 priority here is to be able to protect everybody associated with our program, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do. As we get the results back, we’ll see exactly where we’re at and we’ll start practice up accordingly.”
Pruitt said students are back on campus and this is something their players are going to have to learn to handle. Tennessee wants to trace these positive results back to the source of infection to prevent this from happening again. With the season kickoff still a month away, Pruitt said they have time to be cautious and still get the 25 practices allotted in.
“It’s not like we are running out of time or anything like that,” Pruitt said. “We want to make sure that we are protecting or players and reassuring their safety.”