University of Tennessee Athletics
Witten Named SEC Good Works Team Player of Week
November 21, 2002 | Football
Nov. 21, 2002
Tennessee junior tight end Jason Witten will be featured as the SEC Good Works Team Player of the Week on Saturday's Jefferson-Pilot Sports telecast of the UT-Vanderbilt game.
The Elizabethton native has been busy speaking to area hospitals, camps, schools and youth groups. He has visited children at the East Tennessee Children's Hospital, Nashville and Knoxville YMCA Camps, Gibbs Elementary School and Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Knoxville, and has spoken at the Elizabethton Christian Youth Crusade and Salem Baptist Church.
An Education/Sport Management major, Witten has been a steadying influrence for a Vol offense that has been decimated with injuries. This season, Witten is leading the Vols in receiving with 31 catches for 414 yards and five touchdowns. During his UT career, Witten has 60 catches for 718 yards and seven touchdowns.
The SEC sponsors Good Works Teams for football, men's and women's basketball and men's and women's Olympic Sports. JP Sports highlights one member of the football SEC Good Works Team during each of its weekly football telecasts.
WITTEN CLIMBING UT TIGHT END CHARTS, COULD ECLIPSE SEASON RECORDS THIS WEEK
Witten continues to sparkle during his junior season. The Elizabethton native is the only Vols receiver with a catch in every game this season and his 31 catches for 414 yards and five touchdowns lead all SEC tight ends. Witten also is within three catches, two receiving yards and two touchdowns of owning all UT three season receiving records for his position.
"Those are amazing numbers considering all we've been through with the quarterback position," Fulmer said. "I think Jason's one of those guys who could easily end up with 50 or 60 catches in a season. If Casey (Clausen) had been here the whole time I don't think there's any question he would already be close to those numbers."
Ken DeLong caught 34 passes for the 1968 Vols, Jeff Smith finished with 416 receiving yards in 1984 and Austin Denney caught seven touchdown passes for the 1966 Big Orange to place their names atop Tennessee's tight end receiving charts for a single season.
Witten has a shot at all three marks this season as well as the career records by the end of his UT career. Reggie Harper (1977-80) caught 98 passes for 1,141 yards to lead in those categories, while Denney and DeLong share the career touchdowns mark with nine.
"He's definitely a big-time player and with another year he'd be even a bigger-time player," Fulmer said of Witten, who for his career has 60 catches for 718 yards and seven scores. "At the same time, Jason's very unselfish and does what it takes to win. You need a tight end that's that versatile, particularly in our offense."
