'I want to be better': Tennessee receiver Bru McCoy updates injury recovery progress
When Bru McCoy showed up for a radio appearance last week on 99.1 WNML-FM in Knoxville, he didn’t have crutches and he didn’t have a limp. What he did have was a goal in mind for his return from the gruesome lower leg injury that ended his season back in September.
“My goal,” McCoy said during the interview, “is to take this time that I have to rehab and make myself … I don’t want to come back and be less of who I was as a player. I want to be better.”
McCoy was carted off the field during the first half of Tennessee’s 41-20 win over South Carolina on September 30 at Neyland Stadium after suffering a fracture and dislocation of his lower leg.
Trainers immediately brought the cart onto the field for the injury to McCoy’s right leg, as McCoy covered his face with his hands. He left the stadium in an ambulance before undergoing surgery later that night, adding on Wednesday that the injury ultimately required four surgeries and approximately 10 days in the hospital.
“I got to say a huge shout out to all the training staff and the doctors, nurses, everybody that helped me get to where I’m at today,” McCoy said. “Four surgeries, about 10 days in the hospital and here I am now, rehab has gone great.
“No setbacks. Out of the boot. I wear shoes every day. I walk around normal. I can lift like a normal guy. I can live my normal daily life. Now I’m taking the step into becoming Bru McCoy the football player.”
He entered the South Carolina game as Tennessee’s leader in receptions with 15 for 196 yards and a touchdown. He had two catches for 21 yards before the injury against the Gamecocks.
McCoy, a native of Palos Verdes Estates, Calif., started his collegiate career at USC before transferring to Tennessee before the 2022 season. With the Trojans during the COVID-shortened 2020 season, he caught 21 passes for 236 yards and two touchdowns.
In his debut season with the Vols in 2022, McCoy caught 52 passes for 667 yards and four touchdowns. It was McCoy’s 27-yard catch with two seconds left against Alabama last October that set the Vols up for the 40-yard walk-off field goal in the 52-49 win at Neyland Stadium.
The new goal, McCoy explained, is getting back to being that player and more.
“In my head,” he said, “I’m like (thinking) show everyone that this (injury) wasn’t a setback, it was just the change. It was adversity that you grow from and you come back better. And that’s my goal. And that’s where I’m at right now.
“I’m on that journey of getting back to being who I was before I got hurt.”
