Tennessee got blown out by a rival *and* had an open dispute between coach and player, but the beef is squashed now

There is perhaps no program that can add insult to injury quite like Tennessee. The Vols got blasted in a weird way by a Florida team that got six turnovers and won 47-21 while not playing that well on offense. The Gators probably would have played even worse had Quart’e Sapp been on the field in the second half, but the redshirt junior leader was not.

And according to coach Jeremy Pruitt, it’s because Pruitt kicked him off the field — but not necessarily the team — when Sapp refused to go into the game.

And there isn’t much grey area here at first because Pruitt said “I asked him to leave.”

But ... did he? Because Sapp has a different story.

Sapp has been hurt, and was held out of the UTEP game in Week 3 due to injury that Pruitt called a bone bruise that was suffered in practice leading up to the game.

Sapp clearly wanted to stay with the program, and that was a promising sign for the future of his relationship with Pruitt. On the Monday following the Florida game, Pruitt officially told the media that everything was a-ok.

“Quart’e has been a great ambassador,” Pruitt said. “He came and saw me yesterday. Me and him sat down and talked and we’ll keep that in-house. I’ll say this, since I’ve been here he’s been a really good ambassador for our football program and he’s been a good leader on our team. One mistake don’t — you know, everybody makes mistakes. So we’re going to move on and we’ll go from there.”

Yet another weird subplot in the story of the Tennessee football program.