Josh Heupel speaks about timetable for Jermod McCoy's return on the eve of Tennessee Vols' fall camp

The loss of Jermod McCoy at the beginning of the offseason was one of the most important and impactful happenings for the 2025 Tennessee Vols' roster. UT's standout lockdown cornerback suffered a torn ACL in January while training that has put his availability for the start of the season in jeopardy.

With fall camp set to start on Wednesday, July 30, Josh Heupel met with the media on Tuesday, and he explained whether there is a timetable for McCoy's return and went through what they will be looking for to evaluate and determine when he's ready to return to the football field.

"No timetables on him," Heupel said. "There's benchmarks, things that he's got to accomplish within our training room to move on to the next phase of it. He's handled it really well from the very beginning, just his mindset, how he's approached every single day. He's done a really good job throughout the course of the summer. Periodically, you can see his drills, movement, explosive-type drills that he's doing. Change, based on his rehab protocol, and he's handled it extremely well.

"As we go through training camp, there will be a progression. How his body responds to some of those things will kind of dictate the time period of when he's available for us."

As such, it sounds like camp will start without McCoy on the field for Tennessee as they take his return carefully and make sure he can handle gradually increasing and more demanding physical activity.

McCoy had a tremendous season in 2024 for the Vols in his first year after transferring from Oregon State. He was a First Team All-SEC and Second Team All-American selection by the AP after leading the Vols with 13 passes defended - 4 interceptions and 9 pass breakups. He's been projected by several draft experts as a first-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.

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