‘It seems pretty far right now’ – Vols insider comments on the biggest question surrounding Boo Carter ahead of the 2025 season
Tennessee Vols defensive back Boo Carter is making progress in his return to the team after a drama-filled summer that left his spot on the roster in jeopardy. Carter started fall camp by mostly being separated from his teammates during the portions of practice that were open to the media before returning in a full […]
Tennessee Vols defensive back Boo Carter is making progress in his return to the team after a drama-filled summer that left his spot on the roster in jeopardy.
Carter started fall camp by mostly being separated from his teammates during the portions of practice that were open to the media before returning in a full capacity this week.
Adam Sparks of The Knoxville News Sentinel joined 104.5 The Zone’s The Buck Reising Show on Thursday and he suggested that “embarrassment” was part of Carter’s punishment.
“He had been ostracized, sort of excluded from the team, for a week,” said Sparks. “It’s weird to say, but I think embarrassment was almost part of the punishment. He had to run a lot and do a lot of conditioning that I know we didn’t see. He went to the Children’s Hospital here three days in a row, I think it was last week. Sort of to give him a perspective and remind him about how privileged he is to play college football in the SEC.
“But it seemed like embarrassment was a lot of it. We would see him do stretching and all of that, and then sort of just go off into the corner while his teammates went through drills. They would go outside, he would have to stay inside with the injured players. So I think embarrassment was a lot of it…he’s doing drills behind the walk-ons. It’ll be a gradual process. I would expect that he probably would not start the Syracuse game, but he’ll probably play. And this will be a gradual process to sort of get him in until — Georgia is week three, I would think he would be back as a full fledged guy and maybe a starter by then.”
Now that Carter is back and fully participating in practice, the big question is whether he’ll see time on offense in 2025 — which was the plan before his issues this summer.
“It seems pretty far right now,” said Sparks when asked when fans may see Carter on offense. “I think he’ll probably — if he behaves himself and all of those sort of things during the season — I think he’ll probably end up on offense, at least for a handful of plays, in some kind of package during the season. You never know how things are going to go, but if they like what they have in practice and they need him to catch three balls against Alabama in October, I’m sure they’ll do that. But it does seem more distant now than it did.
“So much of the narrative of the offseason was that Boo Carter was pushing to be on offense more than Tennessee was pushing for him to be on offense. Not to say that it was 100 percent and 0 percent, but it seemed like Boo Carter was pushing for that more than Tennessee was. And now that he is sort of being penalized for missing workouts and team activities in the summer, he doesn’t really have leverage as much to push for that or to ask for that. So I think if and when he does play offense, it will be Josh Heupel making the decision, and not as much trying to do something that Boo Carter necessarily would be lobbying for. I just don’t think he has much power right now to ask for anything.”
Carter is a dynamic player with the ball in his hands. It would behoove Tennessee to find a way to get him involved on the offensive side of the ball. But Carter first has to fully regain the trust of his teammates and the coaching staff. That process is under way, but Carter will have to remain consistent in being a good teammate and being coachable for more than just two weeks to fully regain that trust.
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