The Tennessee Volunteers canceled Saturday’s football scrimmage because 44 players were unavailable due to COIVID or injury-related issues.

“It’s definitely been challenging,” Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt told reporters. “We’ve got to continue to improve as a football team and just figure out the circumstances and figure out a way to be productive.”

Per KnoxNews.com’s Blake Toppmeyer, “Pruitt said the team has seven or eight players with active cases of COVID-19, while more than two dozen other players are unable to practice because of contact-tracing protocol that requires them to quarantine. Additionally, a few players are unavailable because of injury. The majority of the unavailable players are offensive players. Pruitt said only 30 offensive players were available for Saturday’s practice.”

Tennessee opens the season at South Carolina on Sept. 26.

“I think our guys are trying to do the right thing,” Pruitt said. “They’re aware of it. You know, if somebody that you live with (tests positive), you’re in quarantine. In our county, that’s the way it is. It might be like that everywhere. We’ve had some of that.

“But, I don’t think it’s something to where our players are not being responsible. I definitely don’t think that.”