Tennessee starting tight end Dominick Wood-Anderson wasn’t on the practice field during the open portion of practice on Tuesday. On Wednesday, UT head coach Jeremy Pruitt explained why.
During the weekly SEC coaches teleconference, Pruitt mentioned Wood-Anderson and said the senior tight end missed practice due to a foot injury. But Wood-Anderson isn’t expected to miss a significant amount of time according to Pruitt.
“Dom has had a little bit of an infection in his foot,” Pruitt said on Wednesday. “He’s going to be fine, so he should be there (at practice) today.”
Pruitt didn’t specify how Wood-Anderson hurt his foot or what happened, but it doesn’t appear like UT’s starting tight end will miss any games.
So far this season, Wood-Anderson is the only Vol tight end to be utilized in the passing game. Austin Pope caught a pass against Georgia State, but it went for no gain. Pope has mostly been used as a blocking tight end, and he did an admirable job of that on Saturday against BYU.
Wood-Anderson, on the other hand, has been a focus of Tennessee’s passing attack, even if he doesn’t have the stats to necessarily show that.
In Tennessee’s first game of the season, Wood-Anderson reeled in a 54-yard reception and finished the game with three catches for 79 yards. Those 79 receiving yards were over half the amount he totaled all last season in his first year with Tennessee (140). Against BYU, Wood-Anderson only caught one pass for five yards, though he was targeted several other times.
The 6-foot-4, 257-pound tight end from San Diego, California joined the Vols as a four-star junior college prospect in UT’s 2018 signing class. Wood-Anderson was one of the top JUCO recruits in the 2018 cycle, and he chose the Vols over Alabama and others. Before joining UT, Wood-Anderson played for Arizona Western Community College in 2016 and 2017.
In his first year with the Vols, Wood-Anderson caught 17 passes for 140 yards and a touchdown. He currently has four receptions for 84 yards in 2019.
