Tennessee to wear black jerseys vs. Kentucky in honor of Black Lives Matter

Tennessee is making special plans for the Kentucky game and I can’t even make fun of them because it’s actually a pretty cool idea. This morning, Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt told reporters that the team is talking about wearing black jerseys for the game vs. Kentucky in Neyland Stadium on November 7 and auctioning them off to raise money for Black Lives Matter.

“When the game is over with, (we want to) find a way to auction the jerseys and raise money for Black Lives Matter,” Pruitt said, via KnoxNews. “That is one thing our kids have talked about. It is something that is going to continue to be stressed within our staff. With Tee [Martin]’s leadership and the guys within our program, there’s lot of really good ideas we can help improve and use our platform to create change.”

While Tennessee is usually a stickler for tradition, the Vols have worn black jerseys before, back in 2009 vs. South Carolina on Halloween.

Earlier this year, Brian Niedermeyer, Tennessee’s inside linebacker coach, called for the team to bring back the black jerseys, tweeting out this mock up:

https://twitter.com/NiedermeyerB/status/1255829150834835457?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1255829150834835457&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.saturdaydownsouth.com%2Ftennessee-football%2Fvolunteers-football-black-jersey-uniform-brian-niedermeyer%2F

I’m sure Tennessee won’t be the only team honoring the Black Lives Matter movement this season; in fact, it’s already happening in other sports. On Tuesday, the English Premier League kicked off with players wearing jerseys with “Black Lives Matter” across the back instead of their last names:

Considering Mark Stoops and the Kentucky Football team participated in a protest wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts a few weeks ago, I’m sure the program will do something similar. Or, the Cats can make sure those jerseys are truly historic by beating the Vols in Neyland for the first time since 1984.