{"id":560147,"date":"2025-11-28T04:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/560147\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T04:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:20:11","slug":"tennessees-availability-report-unchanged-heading-into-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/560147\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee&#8217;s availability report unchanged heading into Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tennessee\u2019s Thursday SEC mandated availability report is unchanged from Wednesday\u2019s initial report for Saturday\u2019s match up with Vanderbilt. \u00a0The Vols (8-3, 4-3 SEC) and the Commodores\u00a0 (9-2, 5-2) Saturday afternoon are scheduled for a 3:30 start on ESPN\u00a0at Neyland Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>PlayerPosition WednesdayPeyton LewisRunning BackQuestionableJordan RossLEOQuestionableSidney WaltonSafetyOutMiles KitselmanTight EndOutRickey GibsonCornerbackOutJermod McCoyCornerback Out<\/p>\n<p>Offensive guard\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/wendell-moe-147404\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wendell Moe<\/a>\u00a0was dressed Saturday night at Florida and was available in an emergency role. Moe was not called upon to play. Moe\u2019s knee is a week better and he is available for Saturday\u2019s regular season finale.<\/p>\n<p>Running back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/peyton-lewis-174549\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Peyton Lewis<\/a> missed last week\u2019s game with an ankle injury. Lewis remains questionable as does LEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/jordan-ross-157789\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jordan Ross<\/a>. Ross only played 10 snaps last week at Florida and he missed the previous week\u2019s game against New Mexico State. Tennessee\u2019s DeSean Bishop got the line share of the work with a career high 24 carries. Lewis remains questionable for Saturday\u2019s match up with Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n<p>Senior tight end\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/miles-kitselman-154869\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Miles Kitselman<\/a>\u00a0remains out and will miss his final game in Neyland Stadium. Kitselman injured his knee in the third quarter of a 42-9 win over New Mexico State and missed last week\u2019s game against Florida.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The injury report will be updated again Thursday night, Friday night, then one final time 90 minutes before Saturday night\u2019s kickoff.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At the tight end position, the Vols turned to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/ethan-davis-42906\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ethan Davis<\/a> a week ago and the Georgia native responded with his best night as a Vol. Davis had 5 catches for 72 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, he\u2019s ready to play \u2013 kind of goes back to being functional versus being dominant,\u201d tight ends coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=13S8KUpyQNU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alec Abeln said<\/a>. \u201cObviously, had a pass protection sack on Saturday and that really just comes down to a day one fundamental that I trust him in all those situations. He\u2019s got to go continue to execute it. But I think the challenge is, man, you can play with him and ask him to do anything we\u2019re going to ask him to do. It\u2019s just about not just being able to do it but being able to be dominant while we\u2019re doing it \u2013 I think is the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Tennessee will be without <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/jermod-mccoy-152695\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jermod McCoy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/rickey-gibson-151118\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rickey Gibson<\/a> who have missed the entire season due to injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Will Tennessee continue to play some three linebacker sets? <\/p>\n<p>With he dismissal of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/boo-carter-147099\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boo Carter<\/a>, Tennessee is thin at the nickel position. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/jalen-mcmurray-54398\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jalen McMurray<\/a> has been the starter there all season. Last week at Florida, to help manage the lack of depth as well as matching up against Florida\u2019s offense, Tennessee played a traditional 4-3 defense with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/arion-carter-145794\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arion Carter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/edwin-spillman-40772\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Edwin Spillman<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/jeremiah-telander-146626\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jeremiah Telander<\/a> on the field at the same time. The trio combined for 23 tackles including 2.5 for loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have been working on that,\u201d Heupel said. \u201cThat\u2019s a part of our package. Obviously, we are thinner at a certain spot right now than we were (Boo Carter dismissal). Ultimately we felt like in certain personnel groupings, certain situations we had the opportunity to be bigger and not let it hinder us in what we wanted to do against defending the pass.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The question is can Tennessee deploy that same look Saturday afternoon against a much more explosive Vanderbilt attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennessee\u2019s Thursday SEC mandated availability report is unchanged from Wednesday\u2019s initial report for Saturday\u2019s match up with Vanderbilt.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48,1788,1209],"class_list":{"0":"post-560147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-regwall","12":"tag-tennessee-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115625410915099605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}