Tennessee Football: Brett Kendrick Situation Is Worse Than It Looks

Tennessee Vols head coach Butch Jones is coming under fire for not removing Brett Kendrick from the game in UT’s loss to the Kentucky Wildcats.

A lot of people let down Tennessee Vols offensive lineman Brett Kendrick on Saturday night in Kentucky.

And that list of people includes Tennessee football head coach Butch Jones.

Jones, however, wants no part of the blame, using every opportunity to get in front of a microphone to let everyone know that he has absolutely no say in when a player is removed from the game.

Obviously we can’t place complete blame on Jones. Tennessee has a medical staff and trainers that determine if a player can play or not. The SEC also has officials in the press box to look for certain behavior on the field.

But this whole passing the buck thing doesn’t work in life (Jones loves to say that football is life just sped up faster), so why would it work in a football game?

At the end of the day, Jones is the “caretaker” of Tennessee football. It begins and ends with him, as he’s let us know for the past five years.

We don’t know what Jones knew and when he knew, but we do know (according to Clay Travis) that offensive line coach Walt Wells possibly knew that Kendrick had a head injury.

"At halftime other linemen recognized that Kendrick was woozy, but Kendrick didn’t want to let his team down and didn’t approach trainers to notify them of his injury. That was because offensive line coach Walt Wells, who multiple sources believe had to know Kendrick was concussed, repeatedly exhorted Kendrick, “We need you to go!” and pointed out that Kendrick’s back up had not made the trip to Lexington."

If other offensive linemen noticed Kendrick didn’t look right, how are we suppose to believe that Jones, who is on the sideline focusing on the 11 players on the field, didn’t notice anything odd about Kendrick?

You could see it during the broadcast of the game, and that only provides us with a limited viewpoint.

Watching Kendrick, who is obviously woozy, grab his head in that clip makes me sick to my stomach.

If a player is seen limping on the field, Jones (or someone on his staff) isn’t going to wait for a call from the medical staff to take the player out of the game. You’re gonna send in another player and let the injured player get checked out.

Would any adult stand there and watch an obviously injured player on the field and not do anything until someone buzzed you and said “oh you need to take that guy out, he’s hurt”. Seems absurd, doesn’t it?

And for anyone who thinks Kendrick should have removed himself from the game, check out this thread of tweets and it might change your opinion.

What happened on Saturday night not only shouldn’t have happened, it can’t happen.

Hopefully Kendrick wil be ok (he’s out for Saturday’s game against Southern Mississippi), because concussions, and continuing to take hits after sustaining a concussion, is not something you play around with.

Do I think Butch Jones would purposefully send a player with a concussion on to the field?

Probably not (though it apparently happened with Jalen Hurd in the Georgia game in 2016. Hurd’s stepfather said he sustained a concussion early in the game and entered concussion protocol, but he was in the game on the final kickoff).

But I do think what happened on Saturday night was neglect and it falls on a lot of different people. Butch Jones is among those people, no matter how badly he wants to remove himself from the situation.

You see a person’s true character in times of adversity. At no point on Wednesday during Jones’ media tour (SEC teleconference, weekly press conference, interview on 104.5, or during Vol calls) did Butch mention Kendrick’s health or express deep concern over the fact that a player possibly played two quarters with a concussion. Nope, all he was worried about was making sure folks knew he wasn’t to blame.

Next: Updated Coaching Candidates To Replace Butch Jones

Tennessee’s student athletes deserve better.

Brett Kendrick deserved better.

Regardless of what happens with Butch Jones, Tennessee has to make sure this never ever happens again.