Josh Heupel not regretful of giving Boo Carter second chance before eventual exit

After a season of trying to get things right in Knoxville, DB Boo Carter is, as of yesterday, to part ways with Tennessee. Josh Heupel, though, doesn’t regret the opportunity that they gave him since things seemingly went wrong back in the summertime.

Heupel addressed the second chance given to Carter by the Volunteers in his first answer of his press conference on Monday. He said it was their job to continue to try to work with him as one of their players, but, in the end, that doesn’t always work out.

“No, not regretful,” said Heupel. “At the end of the day, it’s our job as coaches to try to mold these guys, and that’s a part of the commitment that you make, you know, in the recruiting process and when they decide to come. You know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And, you know, at the end of the day, we’re moving forward.”

Heupel also denied that his recent absence had anything to do with anything injury-wise, as had been suggested by the former sophomore defensive back. Carter was not on the SEC Availability Report, and his coach says he correctly shouldn’t have been for the Vols.

“No sir,” Heupel said shortly, responding to a question about Carter’s possible injury status. “Not based on our trainers.”

This has been a storyline for four months on Rocky Top. Carter had an uncertain future with the program back in July after missing several activities for the Volunteers, but Tennessee elected to keep him on the team with an unspecified suspension for him where he had to earn his way back. He seemingly did enough through fall camp, as he had appeared in each of the first eight games, posting 25 tackles, 4.5 of those being for loss, with three deflections, three forced fumbles, and a sack on defense while returning 11 punts as well on special teams for 145 yards, for the Vols. However, Carter saw only special teams snaps against Oklahoma, and then was not on the sidelines this past weekend in a win over New Mexico State.

“At the end of the day, there’s a standard you got to meet to be in that locker room, and, you know, so. He was not out on the field with us,” Heupel had said postgame on Saturday. “That’ll be the last, that’ll be my last response to anything related to that for right now.”

Then, on Sunday, Tennessee and Carter were reported to be parting ways, as confirmed by On3’s Pete Nakos. Carter later shared on social media that his season was over due to injury, and that he intends to enter his name into the NCAA Transfer Portal. On3’s Steve Wiltfong has since reported on a few schools that could get involved with him come the opening of the portal window on January 2nd.

This is an unfortunate end to what was a once-promising career for Carter at Tennessee. But, even though it finished that way, Heupel doesn’t have any remorse in trying to make things work with this situation like the program did.