Tennessee Feeling 'Healthy' After The Bye, While Hendon Hooker Draws Praise For Leadership

When you have a football team that is very thin on both sides of the football, it's not easy putting it all together on the field when you're also dealing with injuries. This is what Tennessee has been dealing with for the past month before getting a much needed week off. This team had injuries across the offensive line, running back group and defensive side. If you named a position, the Vols were hurting at it.

But, with a good 12 days to recover from injury and to get some guys who had to play back to full speed, the coaching staff feels like this group is finally in a healthier place heading into Saturday's 7 p.m. eastern game against Kentucky (the Vols are getting a half-point against the Wildcats, according to FanDuel.)

Going into the Alabama game, the Vols were banged up at two different spots along the offensive line, as were Tiyon Evans and Jabari Small. Now, it seems as though those days off are paying off. Tennessee OC/TE coach Alex Golesh spoke with the media about how nice it is to have a full stable of players who are mostly healthy again.

"Luckily, I feel like coming back off this bye week that we’ve got a full stable – back to healthy at running back, we’re back to healthy on the O-line. I feel like we’re going to have our best chance now down the stretch to run the football as long as we can obviously stay healthy. But it has been really challenging both in running the football and being able to protect the quarterback in a lot of ways.”

It was obvious that the lack of a running game was going to hurt in Tuscaloosa, as Jabari Small couldn't do it all and Hendon Hooker was still banged up. So, it was a different type of approach on offense, especially with the offensive line depth.

. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)

Courtesy Of Tennessee Athletics