Former Tennessee transfer and current Kentucky offensive lineman Gerald Mincey is listed as “out” in the Wednesday night availability report before the Tennessee-Kentucky game this Saturday night in Knoxville.
Mincey has been the starting right tackle for the first seven games of the Wildcats’ season but missed last week’s game against Auburn with an injury.
After playing his first two collegiate seasons at Florida in 2020 and 2021, Mincey transferred to Tennessee for a pair of seasons in 2022 and 2023. During that span, Mincey started 13 total games for the Volunteers while playing in 21 games across the two-year stretch.
The Fort Lauderdale, FL, native entered his name into the transfer portal on Jan. 4 following Tennessee’s Citrus Bowl win over Iowa and emerged with the Kentucky Wildcats eight days later.
Mincey was vocal on social media about receiving criticism from the Tennessee fanbase in the immediate days after committing to Kentucky.
“Really gave my all to Tennessee reading all these negative comments hurts man not gonna lie played this past season with a torn MCL and was able to help my team win a bowl game with a big smile on my face because I did love being a volunteer but business is business,” Mincey posted to social media in a since-deleted tweet.
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Mincey followed that up with another tweet that said, “November 2nd,” referencing this Saturday’s return to Neyland Stadium.
The former Vol continued to stroke the flame through the media.
“Kentucky has to want to earn it,” Mincey said in January according to CatPause.com. “I love the underdog. When we go there Nov. 2 to Neyland (Stadium) and bust them in the mouth, we’ll put the standard back over here.”
After a quiet summer, Mincey once again revved up the Tennessee conversation before the season with a direct comparison between the Wildcats’ offense and the Volunteers’ offense.
Mincey suggested during preseason ball that Kentucky’s offense was “probably a little bit faster” than the Tennessee offense.
“It’s just the same but a little worse (from a fatigue standpoint),” Mincey said about the Kentucky offense. “Because we’ve got to run outside zone to the right and then we have to hurry up to the ball if you know what I mean. When we had the scrimmages and saw “oh wow we can actually catch the defenses off guard and stretch the defense out and throw it over the top, we just all bought in to the system and all bought in to what it takes to have our offense. Because our goal is to have the No. 1 offense in the SEC. I think we have a good group of guys that can do that.”
While Mincey’s status of “out” could change between now and Saturday it does seem unlikely. Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider each weeknight for an updated look at both Tennessee and Kentucky’s injury reports heading into the game on Saturday night in Knoxville.
No. 7 Tennessee (6-1, 3-1 SEC) will host Kentucky (3-5, 1-5 SEC) this Saturday night at 7:45 p.m. ET.
