Safety
Todd Kelly Jr.: 16
Micah Abernathy: 10
Evan Berry: 3
Nigel Warrior: 1
Total: 30
It feels like Todd Kelly Jr. has been in Knoxville forever, but the senior has only started 16 games in his Tennessee career. Granted, Kelly has played in many more and was on the field a lot even as a reserve in his younger days, but that number still seems surprisingly low considering how prominent he’s been.
Barring some sort of massive shakeup or injury, Kelly will start at one of the safety spots for the Vols. The other spot will be up for grabs, but junior Micah Abernathy is the favorite to land the job over sophomore Nigel Warrior.
Warrior and senior Evan Berry both made spot starts last season, and both will be valuable backups if they don’t start. But behind them are a bunch of unknown, albeit talented, reserves.
The Vols have plenty of talented options at safety in 2017 even if they’re not quite as experienced as most of the other units on defense.
