After sitting out all but four games in 2013 because of a left knee injury, Trevarris Saulsberry was primed to return to the Tennessee Volunteers’ interior defensive line rotation.
His surgically repaired knee, however, had different plans.
During the Vols’ open practice on Aug. 16 – just 15 days before UT kicked off its season against Utah State – the redshirt junior went down, clutching that same left knee as the training staff attended to him.
“That’s probably the most depressed I’ve ever been in my life,” Saulsberry said Tuesday. “To be so close to the season and just having something to mess that up was just heartbreaking. I thought I was good, I felt ready, but it just didn’t go the way I wanted it to.”
After suffering a similar injury just a year before, Saulsberry admits that as he left Neyland Stadium that night on crutches, he thought his season was over because he felt “all the same pops” in his knee.
Luckily for Saulsberry, the injury ended up not quite as serious, and after missing the Vols’ first three contests, Saulsberry made finally his season debut against the Georgia Bulldogs on Sept. 27.
The 6-foot-4, 296-pound defensive tackle saw only limited snaps in Athens, Georgia, but came back a week later in a much larger role against the Gators – his hometown team – playing 37 snaps for UT.
“There were a lot of emotions,” Saulsberry said. “I’m from Gainesville and with that rivalry, I don’t even know what to say about it. It meant a lot to be out there against Florida, coming back and being that it’s my hometown and knowing people on the other team. It felt good. I enjoyed it and embraced it as the process went on.”
Getting to that point, however, wasn’t always easy.
Saulsberry stated that his rehabilitation process had a lot of “ups and downs,” but support from his teammates – especially from Curt Maggitt and Brian Randolph, who have each suffered major knee injuries – helped him get through it.
Since then, Randolph has consistently been in Saulsberry’s ear, helping him keep his mind off of his thrice-injured knee.
“Brian Randolph always tells me, ‘When you go out there, just don’t think about it. Clear your mind and just go. Just play,'” Saulsberry said. “When you play fast, bad stuff doesn’t happen to you. I just go out there, play as hard as I can and let God make the decision as to what happens.”
And the Vols will need Saulsberry’s presence in the upcoming weeks, as freshman defensive tackle Owen Williams will miss the next week or two after undergoing surgery on his thumb.
“(Saulsberry’s) a big body who has a presence,” defensive line coach Steve Stripling said. “(Him being back) helps with rotation numbers when we get into extended drives and those kinds of things, so it’s a real plus to have him out there.”
Stripling also added that, ideally, Saulsberry, who is not yet back to 100 percent, would play somewhere in between “the mid-30s to 40” snaps in Saturday’s contest against Chattanooga, but continued to say that ultimately it would depend on “the ebbs and flows of the game.”
As for Saulsberry, the injury may have been a minor setback in terms of his return to the field, but he said he was “glad it happened” because of what he learned from it.
“You can never just sit there and mope about things, you always have to look on the positives,” Saulsberry said. “If you stay positive, positive things happen to you.”
