Heupel: QB Hendon Hooker ‘day to day’ after suffering injury against Ole Miss

Making everything worse after a bad ending to the Tennessee-Ole Miss game was the injury to quarterback Hendon Hooker. The veteran passer has infused a ton of life into Josh Heupel’s year one offense, but went down in the final moments against the Rebels.

Frankly, it didn’t look good. Hooker needed assistance to get off of the field and didn’t appear able to put much weight on his leg at all. Heupel didn’t have any update following the game, but seemed to share some good news today.

Heupel said that Hooker is ‘day to day’ and his injury isn’t viewed as being anything long-term.

Now, Heupel has played some games with his injury updates a few times this year, so we’ll have to wait and see if Hooker really is day to day or not. But the big takeaway here is that the injury isn’t a long term deal. Let’s face it — Tennessee likely isn’t going into Tuscaloosa to knock off the Crimson Tide this weekend, so getting him back for Kentucky, South Alabama and Vanderbilt is a much bigger deal.

Tennessee also has an open date next week, which obviously will give the Volunteers a much-needed breather to get healthy.

If Hooker is unable to go, expect Joe Milton to get the call at quarterback this weekend against Alabama (7 p.m. ET Saturday, ESPN).