Josh Heupel updates the status of Tennessee tackles Lance Heard, John Campbell
Tennessee Football coach Josh Heupel said during his press conference on Monday that the Vols should have both left tackle Lance Heard and right tackle John Campbell for next week’s game at Arkansas.
“I feel like we’ll have both of those guys when we get to Fayetteville,” Heupel said.
Heard has missed Tennessee’s last two games, the 71-0 home win over Kent State on September 14 and the 25-15 win at Oklahoma Saturday night. Campbell started at Oklahoma before leaving the game early.
The Vols (4-0) are off this week before going back on the road to face Arkansas (3-1) on October 5 in Fayetteville. The game will start at either 7 or 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time and will be televised by either ESPN or ABC, with a final determination to be made this weekend.
Without Heard at Oklahoma, Dayne Davis started at left tackle and played 75 snaps, tied with Nico Iamaleava, Javontez Spraggins, Cooper Mays and Andrej Karic for the highest snap counts in the win.
John Campbell started at right tackle and played 34 snaps at right tackle. Larry Johnson played 41 snaps after replacing Campbell at right tackle.
Davis played 39 snaps against Kent State, Johnson played 31 snaps and Campbell played 24.
Heard was listed as questionable on Tennessee’s first two injury reports last week, on Wednesday and Thursday, before being downgraded to out on Friday. He did not travel with the Vols to Norman.
Tennessee will issue its first injury report for Arkansas next Wednesday night.
Heard was one of the top offensive linemen in the NCAA Transfer Portal during the offseason before committing to Tennessee in January.
He was a five-star prospect in the 2023 recruiting class, signing with LSU as the No. 11 overall player in the On3 Industry Ranking. He was the No. 4 offensive tackle in the country and the No. 2 player in the state of Louisiana, out of Neville High School in Monroe.
Heard transferred after his freshman season with the Tigers with juniors Will Campbell and Emery Jones starting at the tackle spots.
“You don’t want to lose anybody (in) your program that you’ve recruited,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said in July at SEC Media Days in Dallas. “But there are times within your program that you present what the situation is and if it’s not agreeable to both sides then you have to move on.
“We wish him the best and hope he has great success. He’s a good kid. And he gets a chance to play at an SEC school that will give him a high profile and an opportunity to have great success. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. It doesn’t mean that anybody is as fault as much as we hope he has great success where he is.”
