Bru McCoy looks back at the moment he knew he'd be returning to Tennessee
Bru McCoy looked back at the moment and described it as bittersweet. It was both fortunate and unfortunate, thinking about when he knew for sure he’d be headed back to Tennessee for another season.
“It kind of came through an unfortunate circumstance, I’ll say,” McCoy said recently during an appearance on 99.1 WNML-FM in Knoxville.
That circumstance was the passing of his late grandfather while McCoy was back home in California, rehabbing from the broken leg that ended his redshirt senior season back in September.
“When he was in hospice care, all the family has flown home, we’re all taking our turns taking care of him,” McCoy said, ” … when it was my turn to go in and say my peace, he had a Tennessee blanket draped over the bed.
“So I was sitting there visiting and the time after (the injury), at this point I was walking, I was healthy. I knew that whichever way I chose to go, I could do it. I would be betting on myself regardless. But before he passed, he spoke so highly about Tennessee and my time, all that stuff.”
That’s when McCoy knew what he had to do.
“It kind of was like God made the decision for me and he placed it in front of me and I knew,” McCoy said. “I didn’t decide for another three weeks after that, but I knew in my heart and I was like, this place is special to me.
“It’s home, it’s family, just like I’m home with family now. So that was, that was the day I decided.”
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McCoy announced publicly on January 2 that he would be returning to Tennessee. He caught 69 passes for 884 yards and five touchdowns in 17 games with the Vols over the last two seasons.
He entered the South Carolina game on September 30 as Tennessee’s leader in receptions with 15 for 196 yards and a touchdown. He had two catches for 21 yards before the injury against the Gamecocks.
McCoy started his collegiate career at USC before transferring to Tennessee before the 2022 season. With the Trojans during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, he caught 21 passes for 236 yards and two touchdowns.
In 2022, his first season at Tennessee, McCoy caught 52 passes for 667 yards and four touchdowns
“My goal is to take this time that I have to rehab and make myself … I don’t want to come back and be less of who I was as a player,” McCoy said. “I want to be better. So my goal is to kind of, in my head, I’m like (thinking) show everyone that this wasn’t a setback, it was just the change. It was adversity that you grow from and you come back better.
“And that’s my goal. And that’s where I’m at right now, I’m on that journey of getting back to being who I was before I got hurt.”
