ESPN names Vols player as an early 2025 All-American, but it's a bittersweet honor for Tennessee
ESPN named a Tennessee Vols player as an early All-American for the 2025 season, but it's a bittersweet honor for the UT fan base. On Monday, ESPN revealed their "way-too-early" 2025 college football All-American team. Vols cornerback Jermod McCoy was the only Tennessee player that made ESPN's All-American team McCoy seemed like an obvious choice […]
ESPN named a Tennessee Vols player as an early All-American for the 2025 season, but it's a bittersweet honor for the UT fan base.
On Monday, ESPN revealed their "way-too-early" 2025 college football All-American team. Vols cornerback Jermod McCoy was the only Tennessee player that made ESPN's All-American team
McCoy seemed like an obvious choice to be included by ESPN after his terrific 2024 season with the Volunteers, but I wasn't sure if he would make the list due to the torn ACL he suffered earlier this offseason.
The torn ACL, of course, is why this is bittersweet for the Vols. It's unclear, at least for now in early February, how much of an impact McCoy will have for Tennessee in 2025.
From ESPN: Tennessee struck it rich in the transfer portal when it brought in McCoy from Oregon State last season. He was an instant difference-maker for the Vols, who finished seventh nationally in scoring defense (16.1 points per game) and allowed just 11 touchdown passes in 13 games. McCoy tied for the team lead with four interceptions. The only question is how quickly he will recover after having surgery in January for a torn ACL suffered while training at home.
McCoy is hoping to return in 2025, potentially early in the season.
But whether that happens is up in the air.
NFL players often miss an entire calendar year while recovering from a torn ACL. And unforeseen setbacks can occur at any time. It's not impossible that McCoy could return early in the 2025 season, but it will require essentially every part of his recovery going exactly to plan for it to happen.
Former Clemson wide receiver Amari Rodgers (the son of Vols legend Tee Martin) defied the odds and returned from a torn ACL in six months in 2019. But that's far from the norm with this injury. And Rodgers, who had a huge 2020 season for the Tigers, wasn't anywhere close to 100 percent in 2019 after returning from his torn ACL.
“His junior year, the ACL injury really hampered him,” said Clemson wide receivers coach Tyler Grisham of Rodgers in 2021. “He had a brace on all year. Whether he knew it or not, he just wasn’t 100 percent, and you could tell by his play. He was favoring it at times. If you’re playing in the slot, you have to have elite change of direction, explosion, suddenness in and out of your breaks, and he wasn’t able to perform at the level that he could because of that injury."
We'll see how McCoy's recovery goes in the coming months, but his inclusion on ESPN's All-American team this week is a reminder that the Vols could be without one of their top players for at least part of the 2025 season.
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