Nick Stephens Bails Vols

Knoxville, TN: Today it was announced that another of a well known player has decided to leave the Vols in lieu again competing to be the starting quarterback for Tennessee.  Nick Stephens has been a loyal player and always there when needed as a backup QB.  In his 5th year as a senior, Nick has decided to move on with the threat of, once again, being pushed aside for younger talent.  Once can’t blame him, you spend your college career as a backup hoping and praying for that one shot to run the show that never comes.  Nick’s contributions to the team are probably far more than the average fan would even phathom but it’s obvious the odds he would once again assume the job of loyal backup and confidant to the new young guns was increasing as Coach Derek Dooley starting giving more practice reps to Simms and Bray.

While every coach goes through these same trials in football, every fan would hope that a coach would try his best to keep a somewhat seasoned player.  Though Stephens didn’t have a lot of playing time, his contributions to the team from time and experience would certainly of been valuable.  It is never good to see a player quit and never good to lose someone on your team you could possibly need in the future but perhaps this was just destiny and that Coach Dooley has enough confidence in our freshman gunslingers to feel losing Stephens was hopefully not going to put the Vols at a disadvantage moving into 2010.  Only time with tell.