Sophomore cornerback Cameron Sutton said he left the field for a while during Tennessee’s loss to Missouri on Saturday because he “blacked out.”

But Sutton said he blacks out “from time to time,” and that Saturday was the first time it had ever happened in a football game, so he didn’t think too much of it.

Tennessee’s training staff, however, understandably did think something of it. Sutton’s helmet was taken away from him until he passed all the standard protocol concussion baseline tests and was allowed to return to the field.

“I just blacked out,” Sutton said during Monday’s weekly media day presser in Neyland Stadium. “It happens from time to time. ...This is just the first time it’s ever happened in a game. They ran a couple of things on the sideline just to make sure I was OK, and I just got back out there.”

Sutton clarified that he blacks out from time to time … but not usually on a football field.

“From time to time, it just happens throughout the course of the day,” Sutton said. “I might black out, but I just keep walking and nothing ever happens. It’s the first time it’s ever happened in a game. But, you know, I can’t let that stop me from going back out there and finishing the rest of the game.

“It just happens from time to time. It doesn’t happen every day. For the two seconds it does happen, I just black out, come back, keep going about my business.”

Sutton said he doesn’t know why he blacks out “from time to time,” but he insisted he doesn’t spend much time worrying about it and doesn’t think anyone else should, either.

“It’s not a problem at all,” said Sutton, who also insisted he wasn't going to miss Saturday's regular-season finale against Vanderbilt in Nashville. “It just happens. I don’t think it’s an issue or anything like that. It’s nothing to be looked into or made a big deal out of.”

Sutton, a Freshman All-American last season and an All-SEC candidate for the Vols this season, returned to the field after missing part of the Mizzou game and generally looked like himself, batting down a couple of passes during the rare moments when an opposing quarterback tested him. He did, however, get beat in a one-on-one situation for a touchdown in the fourth quarter, and that’s something that hasn’t happened many times during his two-year career.

"I'll be back and ready to go this week," Sutton told GoVols247 after he stepped down from the media day stage. "With my mentality, the only thing that's really gonna stop me from going into the game is if I've got a broken leg or something, or I physically just cannot play. I don't think any little injury or anything like that will ever stop me from going in the game."

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