Nico to Bru has a good ring to it. Besides avoiding that difficult surname, it also could be quite prolific if Tennessee’s starting quarterback, Nico Iamaleava, finds a consistent connection with his star receiver, Bru McCoy.

“You start to build your confidence back,” McCoy said of returning from a horrific, season-ending leg injury then recovering by catching practice passes from Iamaleava and the Vols’ backup quarterbacks. “You start to build a connection with them. They start to understand how you run routes, how you come out of the top of a route, your decision making process. So those first few (practices) are just like the beginning of starting to build a foundation of confidence. Then, you have an entire camp to just keep building on that. Now, with mock game week, and then another game week to just keep going.”

McCoy visited with the media on Thursday. The Vols begin game week on Monday with the season-opener set for Aug. 31 against Chattanooga.

McCoy isn’t the only receiver that Iamaleava can depend on. The Vols are as deep at receiver as they have been in recent memory. However, McCoy is the most talented receiver with experience on the Vols’ roster. That’s not up for debate. What is up for debate is just how effective McCoy can be after suffering a fracture-dislocation injury to his right ankle that required surgery to right the many wrongs suffered on the play against South Carolina in October.

By all accounts, McCoy attacked his recovery with a well-thought-out approach in which he didn’t rush his way back. That wasn’t easy.

“As we went through spring, you obviously push rigorous rehab throughout spring and you got the motivation of the fact you’re watching your teammates go out there and practice every day,” the senior said. “As spring was kind of wrapping up, I was able to do more football-based movements, things of that nature. You start getting involved by catching footballs and slowed down route running. And when I was able to do that at a higher level, then I started to kind of seeing like, ‘Okay, I’m doing this a lot earlier than I anticipated, so come camp I wanna be a 100-percent.’”

Sure, McCoy wanted to be ahead of schedule in his recovery, but there was another motivating factor from an unlikely source, a redshirt freshman.

“You want to be available for a guy like Nico, especially since I didn’t get the opportunity to get that spring, get those reps in with him,” McCoy said, “so it was really more motivation for me to just keep pushing it.” 

As the senior statesman of Tennessee’s receivers, McCoy was asked to share his thoughts on Tulane transfer Chris Brazzell II and junior receiver Squirrel White.

“Chris, he’s got this particularly special talent,” McCoy said. “He’s an extremely fluid route runner. He’s got a high football I.Q. He attacks the ball. He’s a jump ball, go-get-it guy. He can also run down any ball down the field and he’s a catch-everything kind of guy (with) really good hands.”

As for White, McCoy said, “And then Squirrel, I think we’ve all seen what he can do, but I think one of the undervalued aspects of Squirrel is his ability to make catches in traffic. I think, as an undersized guy, to go across the field as much as he does and be able to make contested catches, like the catch he made against Alabama, that’s extremely hard to do.

“So his skill set has grown a lot since I’ve been here and he’s a really good receiver. Both of them are gonna be fun to play with him.”

It’s probably good for Brazzell and White that they get to play alongside McCoy. Sure, he can help them get open downfield by dictating coverage. However, he’s also proven he can be a leader, as most evident by overcoming a leg injury that admittedly affected him as much mentally as physically. 

“Yeah, you come across some of those days,” McCoy said, looking back on his rehab. “They’ve warned you as you go through the process. There’s going to be days that you could consider a setback. I think that I struggled with that and I couldn’t progress certain days if I had to take it a little bit easier.

“If I had to maybe make it a day where I’m just focusing on getting the swelling down and things of that nature, it was a struggle in that regard. But really the mental aspect of it not being involved, not being able to do the things you normally do…Not being able to be as active as you are just as an athlete, that part’s hard, but from the physical side it is not as hard as it is mentally.”

A healthy McCoy also has a pretty good ring to it.