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The Tennessee Volunteers are headed back to the Sweet Sixteen for the fourth straight season under men’s head basketball coach Rick Barnes. The 6-seeded Vols beat the 3-seeded Virginia Cavaliers 79-72 to advance to the next round of the men’s NCAA Tournament, where they will face off against the No. 2 seed Iowa State.

Let’s dive into a few of my takeaways from Sunday night’s instant classic in Philadelphia, where the Vols were able to stay dancing.

The Free Throws Ended Up Being Huge

For a lot of this game, I wondered if Tennessee would run into a math problem against Ryan Odom’s Cavaliers. The Cavs were taking, and, well, making lots of threes early in this ball game. Virginia made five threes on eight attempts within the first eight minutes, which did not seem like a recipe for a Volunteer victory on Sunday night.

Tennessee weathered the hot shooting from deep by Virginia, though, and pounded the latter inside. There was a point late in the first half where Tennessee had outscored Virginia 14-4 in the paint, but, again, I wondered if this would ultimately spell doom for the Vols with Virginia’s three-point shooting and the Vols continuing to play with two bigs, even after JP Estrella picked up two early fouls in the first half.

However, the Vols and Cavs finished with 28 and 26 points in the paint, respectively. The Vols and the Cavs finished close in three-pointers made, with 8 and 12, respectively. The disparity in points came at the free-throw line, as Tennessee’s top two scorers, Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Nate Ament, combined to go 13-of-14 at the charity stripe. Ultimately, the Vols went 19-25 at the free-throw line, and it proved to be the key scoring difference for Tennessee, stealing one over the higher-seeded Cavaliers.

Bishop Boswell Had Himself A Night

The sophomore guard had himself a game, didn’t he? As worried as I was about Tennessee’s math problem against Virginia early, Boswell played a significant role in the Vols’ winning this game and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. Boswell hit three first-half threes and another big one in the second half, as he went 4-of-10 from deep overall on the night.

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Tennessee needed every one of those first-half threes from Boswell. There was one possession where Boswell even passed up an open three-pointer to drive and kick to Gillespie for an even better look from deep, which the latter drained. Boswell made so many different winning plays for Tennessee in this game and even added nine assists for good measure.

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Boswell can shoot, and the Vols need him to remember that he can shoot against the Cyclones in the Sweet Sixteen. Spacing can be tight for the Vols in the halfcourt, so Boswell must fire those open threes when he gets those kinds of looks because he can make them, and Tennessee needs him to take them. Boswell doesn’t need to fire any midrange shots, and he doesn’t really need to try to finish at the rim.

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He has to continue a similar shot diet to the one he had Sunday night moving forward. That doesn’t mean he needs to take ten-plus threes a night – it all depends on the flow of the game and what opposing defenses are showing him. Still, the Vols need more three-point shooting like that from Boswell, and they’ll always need his ability to drive and find Ament or Gillespie open for three around the perimeter.

Tennessee Turnovers Didn’t Cost Them

I think every Vol fan was a tad nervous as the second-half turnovers really started to mount late, although some of them were the result of some questionable non-foul calls on Virginia. The Vols finished the game with ten turnovers, and had they not found a way to beat the Cavs Sunday night, that likely would have been the leading takeaway after the game as to why.

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It got wonky down the stretch, but there were a lot of positives, too. Gillespie was clutch from the charity stripe. Ament, too. Even after missing most of the game due to foul trouble, Estrella had two huge buckets inside, one with two guys on him, late in the second half. Tennessee even lost the lead late in the game, but they still found a way to close and advance.

The Vols’ toughest test awaits in Iowa State, but we don’t have to think about that match-up yet. Tennessee has reached its fourth consecutive Sweet Sixteen and is just one win away from three-straight Elite Eights. What a run by Rick Barnes. What a run.

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Well, FanDuel released its early 2026 SEC win total projections this week. That obviously included the Tennessee Volunteers, who now sit at 7.5 wins, a number shared by fellow SEC rivals Ole Miss, Oklahoma, and Florida. Interestingly enough, this will be the third straight season Tennessee’s preseason win total projection has fallen from the previous season. In 2024, it was 9.5 wins. Following Nico Iamaleava’s stunning spring departure the following season, it was 8.5 wins. With an additional conference game and an early road game on The Flats against Georgia Tech this season, it’s down to 7.5 wins.

Even with the additional conference game on the docket, and no Joey Aguilar or big-time, veteran transfer quarterback under center, that 7.5 total feels about right. 6.5 was too low, but 8.5 would have been too high. Head football coach Josh Heupel has won fewer than eight games just once at Tennessee. Even with so much change this offseason, particularly on defense and the defensive coaching staff, along with the uncertainty at quarterback, Heupel has earned the benefit of the doubt.

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However, one of the major worries I have about Tennessee’s schedule next season is the long wait before the first bye week for the Vols. Whether it’s redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon under center, they will face Texas, Auburn, Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina before that first bye week. What makes the slate a bit easier – although easier feels like the wrong word there – is that the games against the Longhorns, Tigers, and Crimson Tide all take place in the friendly confines of Neyland Stadium. It’s fair to project that Arkansas and South Carolina, the two road games for Tennessee during that stretch, will be the weakest of the bunch amongst that group this fall.

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It’s a better year to get Arkansas, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech on the road. The Hawgs will look vastly different under new head coach Ryan Silverfield, with a projected win total of 4.5. The Gamecocks are already dealing with brutal injury luck on the offensive line with a projected win total of 5.5. The Commodores will go from a 24-year-old Heisman-worthy player at quarterback in Diego Pavia to an 18-year-old true freshman in Jared Curtis with a projected win total of 6.5. The Yellow Jackets lost their brilliant offensive coordinator, Buster Faulkner, to Florida, and their three-year starter at quarterback, Haynes King, who exhausted his eligibility with a projected win total of 6.5. This is not to say that I expect the Vols to beat all of these teams on the road this fall. However, outside of Tennessee’s visit to College Station on November 14 against Texas A&M, it’s not all that crazy to envision a world where Heupel’s team is favored in the majority of these ball games.

Tennessee will certainly have its hands full in Knoxville, though. Texas, LSU, and Alabama all have College Football Playoff aspirations and expectations. All might be favored the week they travel to Knoxville. One of the stranger aspects of Tennessee’s 2025 season was how the Vols fared at home. After not losing a home game in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 seasons, the Vols went 1-3 at home against conference foes in 2025. Their lone home win against SEC competition was a one-score win over Arkansas. If you’re a glass-half-full person, you point to the Georgia loss in early September as to how advantageous playing in Neyland against big-time competition can still be, even in a down year. Is there a Tennessee fan or analyst who would have predicted before the season that the Vols’ best showing at home last year would be against Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs?

I suspect not, but that’s what happened. Sure, the result was not what any Vol fan hoped for, but for the first time in the Heupel era, Tennessee gave the Dawgs fits for four quarters. Aguilar tossed four touchdown passes and threw for nearly 400 yards. Chris Brazzell II had his breakout game against the back-to-back SEC champions with six catches for 177 yards and three scores. Yes, Tennessee did not win the ball game, but the Vols throwing all over the Dawgs for the first time in the Heupel vs. Smart series was an important development both for the team and the fanbase.

Before that ball game in September, Heupel had beaten Alabama twice. He had beaten Florida twice. He led the Vols to the College Football Playoff. He finished a season with the No. 1 scoring offense in FBS. He just hadn’t pushed Smart’s Bulldogs for four quarters. Of course, the Dawgs ultimately prevailed with a fourth-down throw for the ages, but the Vols were right there, in Neyland Stadium, to beat the team that would ultimately win the SEC once again.

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Iamaleava did not lose a home game at Tennessee. Sure, the 2026 home slate is a lot tougher than the 2024 home slate, but it is workable. The Longhorns nearly fell to Kentucky and Mississippi State last season. LSU went 0-4 on the road in SEC play last season, albeit with a different coach. Lane Kiffin has been really good on the road in SEC play the last couple of seasons at Ole Miss, 5-3 overall, but winning on the road in this conference is hard. The Crimson Tide has traveled to Knoxville three times in the Heupel era, and they’ve lost all three ball games. Neyland Stadium is going to be rocking, particularly early, when Arch Manning and Texas visit Knoxville on September 26 to begin SEC play. That matters for those coin-flip, one-score games.

I don’t think the CFP is in the cards for Tennessee in 2026, but I do think the schedule is more workable than it might appear after a first glance. The Vols catch some teams on the road at a good time. The Vols catch some teams at home at a good time, too. The grind before the first bye week is a bit worrisome, but the Vols, particularly with Jim Knowles installed as the team’s new defensive coordinator, should hover around the eight-win mark this fall. A nine-win season with a nine-game conference schedule and a freshman quarterback would be dynamite, no question, but it’s a march to eight wins in the regular season for me, and while that would match last year’s disappointing final win total, the context could not be more different. Eight wins in the regular season this year would be a whole lot different than eight wins in the regular season last year.

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No. 25 Tennessee has had an odd 2025-26 season. Barring a major surprise, the Volunteers will go into the Men’s NCAA Tournament with their lowest seed since the 2020-21 season. Tennessee got upset as a five-seed versus a twelve-seed, Oregon State, in the first round of the tournament that year. Tennessee could make it to the Sweet Sixteen, or they could get upset in the Round of 64 — neither would be all that surprising. One of the key, perhaps overlooked, players who will play a big part in Tennessee’s postseason success is Felix Okpara.

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Okpara has had a bit of an odd final season in Knoxville. Offensively, his usage rate is close to what it was a season ago. As brilliant a lead guard as Ja’Kobi Gillespie has been for the Volunteers this season, No. 6 in overall BPA per EvanMiya, the former Greeneville High School star is a stark contrast to former Vols great lead guard Zakai Zeigler. The Lob Connection, in particular, between Zeigler and Okpara was stronger and more comfortable. And yet, Okpara’s usage rate, his scoring, his rebounding, his field goal percentage, etc., mostly mirror the former Ohio State Buckeye’s first season in orange.

Some of Okpara’s metrics are quite different than last season at Tennessee. His offensive rating is 124.5, the highest of his four-year college career. His defensive rating is 103, also the highest of his four-year college career. He’s also playing really good basketball for the Vols over the last month. He’s averaging eight boards a night over the last month, to go along with three games where he scored 15 or more points. He has seven blocks over his last four SEC games. Okpara was just named to the SEC All-Defensive team, too.

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Tennessee is 15th in defensive rating, per KenPom, its lowest mark since the 2020-21 season. Tennessee’s scoring droughts can be frustrating at times, but the Vols falling out of the top-10 defensively is more of the reason this year’s team is staring a five seed in the NCAA Tournament. It’s not just the defensive drop-off that has plagued Tennessee at times this year — part of it is bad injury luck, part of it is being a bit too thin in the backcourt, and part of it is that it’s really hard to sustain the elite level of success head men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes has had over the last four seasons.

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If the Vols are going to push for three-straight Elite Eights, Barnes’ bigs are going to have to dominate more than just on the offensive glass. The Vols miss Cade Phillips’ physicality inside, and you wonder what Barnes’ rotation inside would have looked like over the last month or two had he been healthy and available all season. You have seen flashes from Jaylen Carey and DeWayne Brown. JP Estrella has scored 20 points in back-to-back games and has had four fouls or more in a game only once since February 1. Barnes has needed Okpara to be his steady Eddie, and he has been that for him for the majority of this season. Without Phillips and without Zeigler leading the point of attack on offense and defense, Okpara has had a lot more on his plate to make it all work for the Vols.

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You can see it in his NET rating, and you can see it when opposing players make the mistake of challenging him at the rim. Okpara continues to be Barnes’ most reliable big man and his defensive anchor this season. You wonder where the Vols’ defensive rating would be without him, but it’s fair to project that it’d be far lower than 15th nationally.

Okpara doesn’t shoot threes, he doesn’t demand the ball inside, he’s not going to account for a lot of assists, but he’s been a winning player for Tennessee once again this season. He’s also playing his basketball at the best time for Tennessee, something the Vols and the rest of the bigs around him need as Tennessee starts its SEC Tournament journey this afternoon against Auburn.

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Sure, it’s only mid-February, but that does not mean that it is too early to be thinking about Tennessee football position rooms going into next season. The quarterback room looks a lot different. The defensive line looks a lot different. The secondary looks a lot different.

Let’s dive into how I feel about each position room at this point in the offseason.

Wide Receiver

This time last year, lots of folks were nervous about this position room. It wasn’t due to a lack of talent, but rather a lack of proven production and, really, a lack of adequate bodies. The Vols were fortunate in more ways than one with this room, as Chris Brazzell II broke out as the lone returning upperclassman, and Braylon Staley proved to be the best all-around slot man head football coach Josh Heupel has had at Tennessee. The Vols earned the benefit of the doubt with this room, particularly with so many blue-chippers in this room that include two returning starters in Staley and Mike Matthews. Since this position group does not rotate like the Vols do on the defensive line, for this to be an elite unit again in 2026, one of Radarious Jackson, Travis Smith Jr., or freshman five-star Tristen Keys needs to pop. I feel pretty good that with how talented all three blue-chip players are, at least one will make it work alongside Staley and Matthews to form a dangerous and fun trio out wide in Knoxville this fall.

Guard & Center

Wendell Moe Jr., Sam Pendleton, and Jesse Perry are all back for the Vols this fall along the interior of the offensive line. The biggest return of that group is Moe, who transferred in from Arizona last season and showcased his versatility at both left and right guard. Moe was the 37th-best guard in FBS last season, per PFF. Pendleton didn’t have quite the debut season in Knoxville after transferring in from Notre Dame, but as a four-star transfer who played a lot of snaps in a very different system than what they run in South Bend, it’s fair to assume a jump there. Perry, who can play tackle or guard, has been a fantastic recruting success story for Elarbee. He more than held his own at right tackle with David Sanders out last year, but the hope this year is that he sticks at right guard or right tackle. Then you still have Sham Umarov, who played a lot of snaps last season back and brought in West Virginia transfer Donovan Haslam for even more proven depth along the interior of the offensive line. We might not know who will be Tennessee’s best five starting offensive linemen just yet, but there is a lot more depth along the interior than at offensive tackle.

Cornerback

Ty Redmond was thrust into action as a true freshman last season due to the injuries ahead of him on the depth chart. It looks to have paid dividends for the talented former Milton star sophomore. He finished the season with a 78.2 PFF coverage grade and snagged three interceptions. Across from him, you have a multitude of options that include a multi-year starter at Auburn in Kayin Lee. It could also be Jadais Richards, who transferred in from Miami, or even a wildcard returning young player like Tre Poteat or Tim Merritt. It’s a nice mix of talent with one sure-thing, a couple of intriguing veterans, and a couple of intriguing underclassmen. Again, with how little this room has rotated in the past, Tennessee’s depth here is just fine.

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Linebacker

Can a position room have too much depth? We’re going to find out with the linebacker room at Tennessee. With the surprise return of Arion Carter to the room, along with Penn State transfer Amare Campbell, how linebackers coach William Inge handles the rotation behind the two projected starters will be one of the most fascinating things to watch this offseason. The Vols will also return Jeremiah Telander, Edwin Spillman, Jadon Perlotte, Jaedon Harmon, Ben Bolton, and bring in two more freshman blue-chippers in Brayden Rouse and T.J. White for good measure. The cliche is that this is a good problem to have, particularly in the transfer portal era, to have so much talent stacked behind one another. You still have to develop these guys, though, and there just won’t be enough snaps to go around if this is a healthy group this fall, even with how much Inge likes to rotate. I feel good about this room being the best it’s been in a long time at Tennessee, but who that includes after Carter and Campbell could not be less clear here in mid-February.

Tight End

It’s Ethan Davis’s moment in tight ends coach Alec Abeln’s room in 2026. The former Collins Hill star athlete is The Guy at tight end. Davis finished strong for the Vols down the stretch last season, particularly in the passing game. If he’s able to stay healthy and DaSaahn Brame evolves as a run and pass-blocker to pair with his elite receiving skillset, this room could prove to be one of the best rooms on the team next season. Davis racked up fifteen targets in the final two regular-season games for the Vols and made the most of his increased role. He brought in 12 receptions for 157 yards and a score. He graded well in pass-protection last year, per PFF, and is quietly due for a special season in 2026.

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Quarterback

Quarterback can never be too far down the list under Heupel. It’s certainly a room defined by its uncertainty, but like we saw at wideout last year, that’s not inherently a negative. Whether it’s George MacIntyre or Faizon Brandon under center, the Vols have two former five-star recruits in the fold who will spend the next six months in a real, old-school competition. Would this room be a bit higher if the veteran in the room weren’t Ryan Staub? Sure, but it was always going to be hard to add a higher-profile veteran to this room, same as it was in 2024 with Nico Iamaleava. That didn’t prove to matter then, either, as the Vols won double-digit games and made the College Football Playoff.

Running Back

This, I would suspect, is the biggest shock to most Vol fans who read this piece. Yes, it’s great to get DeSean Bishop back for another season in Knoxville. The former Karns legend has been an awesome hometown story, and he had his best season yet for the Vols last season as the team’s top tailback. It’s what’s behind him that’s more of the worry. Former Oakland standout Duane Morris figures to be the new No. 2 behind Bishop, but he didn’t get the same kind of snaps as a true freshman that Jaylen Wright got in 2021 or Dylan Sampson got in 2022. I’d feel better about this position room overall had Morris played more last season, particularly with Peyton Lewis, who transfered to Virginia this offseason, never getting comfortable in the offense across two seasons. Last offseason, you added a veteran, one-year transfer in Star Thomas. This offseason, you didn’t take a tailback in the high school ranks, and your transfer addition, Javin Gordon, was a true freshman at Tulane last season. The Vols also return former Buford star Justin Baker, too. Tennessee threw the football a lot more than usual in 2025, with a redshirt freshman or true freshman likely under center in 2026, you would think the Vols would like to get back to a more balanced attack and run the football more. I’m just not sure that’s plausible, particularly if this room deals with any injury issues.

Defensive End & LEO

It’s been a while since we’ve been this uncertain about Tennessee’s LEOs and defensive ends. Last year, it was depth along the interior of the defensive line that was the worry for Rodney Garner’s unit. This year, that’s still the case, but with Joshua Josephs and Dominic Bailey off to the NFL along with Jordan Ross and Caleb Herring hitting the transfer portal, there are lots of unknowns every on the Vols’ defensive line in 2026. Penn State transfer LEO Chaz Coleman and Tulane transfer LEO Jordan Norman could certainly be more productive than Herring or Ross would have been at the LEO spot for Tennessee next season, but we just don’t know. Marion Dye and Christian Gass are still in the fold as two former big-time blue-chippers at DE and LEO, respectively. I could envision a scenario where this position room rises in my rankings fast next season, depending on how Coleman and Dye perform early for the Vols.

Offensive Tackle

This is another one of those spots where Elarbee deserves the benefit of the doubt. Even without true freshman star recruit David Sanders to start last season Perry thrived in the former’s absence. In 2022, he made it work with JJ Crawford and Gerald Mincey opposite of Darnell Wright. There are a lot of unknowns and not a lot of depth at this spot in 2026, though. Sanders was good at right tackle last season, but he’s moving over to the left side against a tougher SEC schedule this year as a true sophomore. On the opposite side, is it LSU transfer Ory Williams? Is it Perry? Bennett Warren transferred to Minnesota. Lance Heard transferred to Kentucky. If Sanders, Williams and Perry are healthy, it’s not a huge concern, but, you do not have to squint too hard to see a scenario where things get dicey in a hurry if this position room has any sort of bad injury luck in 2026. Shaky tackle depth with a redshirt freshman or true freshman at quarterback is not where you want to be when you’re trying to have a bounce-back season.

Safety

I really didn’t know where to place this room in the rankings. There is just so much turnover here both with who is coaching the room now in Anthony Poindexter, but also the projected starters in TJ Metcalf and Dejuan Lane. There is absolutely a scenario where Edrees Farooq beats out Lane to start alongside Metcalf, but there is just so much unknown on the back end of this in mid-February. You also have Kansas State transfer Qua Moss in the nickel spot now, too. I think this room will be better than last year’s room, but, man, it’s so hard to project in mid-February with so much change.

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Defensive Tackle

I very much hope I’m wrong here. I think two things can be true: 1) This is an extremely talented room that I would project as one of the best for Tennessee next season and 2) This is an extremely inexperienced room that I project to be one of the worst for Tennessee next season. There are so many high-quality blue-chip players in this room that includes Isaiah Campbell, Ethan Utley, JJ Finch, Dereon Albert and Darryl Rivers, among a few others. Tennessee’s biggest miss this transfer portal cycle was not adding one more experienced veteran to pair with Penn State transfer Xavier Gilliam along with Daevin Hobbs and Nathan Robinson. Hobbs is the safest bet to be the best player in this room this year, and they need him to be a gamewrecker, particularly rushing the passer. Gilliam was solid in 379 snaps last season in Happy Valley, but he had just one sack and 12 tackles overall. Tennessee really needs him to take a leap alongside Hobbs and Robinson to take the pressure off the Vols’ talent young guys behind them. A lot of is riding on Hobbs and Robinson being able to stay healthy, particularly early on to keep the pressure off Gilliam and the young guys. If they’re healthy, Gilliam takes a step, and one of Campbell or Utley breakout this group can be really good really fast. I could also see this being the shakiest this position room has been in the Heupel era in Knoxville.

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There are many different ways to view Tennessee’s impending quarterback competition over the next six months. With Joey Aguilar seemingly out of the starting quarterback picture after his failed preliminary injunction bid last week in Knox County, the Vols are likely to turn to redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon as the Big Orange’s starting quarterback this fall.

On one hand, you certainly knew what you had in Aguilar, but on the other hand, with MacIntyre and Brandon, you have two complete unknowns. It’s important to remember that unknowns are not inherently negative, and this quarterback battle between two big-time former blue-chip recruits could certainly result in the Vols finally securing their first multi-year starter through the high school ranks under head football coach Josh Heupel.

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One of the biggest reasons Tennessee fans have been so concerned about going with either MacIntyre or Brandon in 2026 rather than Aguilar is the daunting schedule, at least ostensibly, that lies ahead for the Vols. However, think of how quickly one team’s fortunes can change on a dime in this sport. It’s never been harder to project how most teams will replicate what they accomplished the previous season.

That game at Bobby Dodd Stadium might look scary early against Georgia Tech, but star quarterback Haynes King is gone, and head football coach Brent Key will be breaking in a new offensive coordinator on The Flats. The Yellow Jackets could be in for a mighty step-back in 2026. Vanderbilt, who embarrassed you at Neyland Stadium last fall, will, in all likelihood, be working through the ups and downs of playing their own true freshman quarterback in Jared Curtis. Texas has had an impressive offseason, sure, but this team also should have lost to Mississippi State and Kentucky last season. LSU was expected to be a CFP team in 2025. Instead, the wins never came, and Brian Kelly was fired. You get Alabama at home, who you haven’t lost to inside Neyland Stadium under Heupel.

In all, there are four first-year coaches at their new school on Tennessee’s schedule, all within the SEC. This 2026 schedule appears to be more daunting than the last two seasons, but once the season gets rolling, these sorts of things can change in a hurry.

The Vols also lost five games last year. They weren’t because of Aguilar, but the team made seismic changes this offseason to ensure the same result does not happen again.

So Tennessee hired defensive coordinator Jim Knowles and strength & conditioning coach Derek Owings. After losing the most games since his debut season in Knoxville in 2021, Heupel took two big-time swings that could and should pay major dividends around his new quarterback, whoever that ultimately turns out to be this fall.

In all five losses last season, the Vols’ defense gave up thirty or more points. They gave up 30-plus points in eight of their 10 games against P4 competition on the whole last season. In 2024, the year Tennessee made the CFP, with a redshirt freshman under center, the Vols gave up thirty-plus points twice and lost both games to Georgia and Ohio State. The Vols had a top-10 scoring offense for the first time since 2022, and they still lost five games. For the second time under Heupel, Tennessee was the only P4 team to finish in the top-10 in scoring offense and not win ten-plus games. The Vols were 91st in 2025 and 90th in 2021, the two seasons where the offense finished in the top-10 in FBS, and they did not win double-digit games. Quite simply, the effect that Knowles and Owings have on Tennessee over the next six months is a much bigger deal for the Vols’ 2026 outlook than who is under center.

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The returning offensive production around either MacIntyre or Brandon also matters. While former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava did have the benefit of a star workhorse tailback in Dylan Sampson behind him to help him along as a redshirt freshman starter, he did not have the weapons at wideout and even tight end that either MacIntyre or Brandon will have at their disposal. With two returning, productive wideout starters in Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews, in addition to the return of Ethan Davis and Da’Saahn Brame at tight end, and incoming five-star freshman Tristan Keys, a Second-Team All-SEC tailback in DeSean Bishop, and as many as five returning starters across the offensive line, the offensive cupboard isn’t bare for either of the two talented freshman.

Timing is everything in life and in sports. The timing of hiring strength & conditioning coach Owings away from Indiana, who just won the national championship, in the same offseason that you have 31 incoming true freshmen and 21 incoming transfers, should matter a great deal. The other is a huge change in who is calling the defense for the Vols this fall. Had you thrown either MacIntyre or Brandon into the fray with a scoring defense in the 90s, that would have felt like a recipe for disaster. Instead, the duo will go into next season with an experienced and proven defensive play-caller who should raise the floor for what that unit can be in 2026. I don’t think it’s fair to expect 2024-levels of production, but even with Penn State’s 2025 implosion, which led to an in-season firing for James Franklin, the unit still finished in the top-30 and gave the Nittany Lions a huge opportunity to upset Indiana in Happy Valley at one point in the year. The previous two seasons in Columbus, Knowles’ scoring defenses finished No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. It would be a major surprise if Tennessee’s scoring defense does not improve to a large degree next season.

There is a precedent within this own conference of freshman and redshirt freshman quarterbacks thriving, too. DJ Lagway went 5-1 as a starter in 2024, his only blemish being a loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, a game where he left with the lead. Marcel Reed went 7-3 in the regular season as a redshirt freshman in 2024. LaNorris Sellers’ best season as a Gamecock came in 2024, as a redshirt freshman. You can look over at the Big Ten, where Michigan has found success sticking with their young, in-house blue-chippers in J.J. McCarthy and Bryce Underwood. Drew Allar went 10-3 as a starter his sophomore season at Penn State. Demond Williams Jr. went 9-4 as a sophomore and threw for over 3,000 yards at Washington.

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Tennessee is not in uncharted waters here — even better, they have two blue-chip quarterbacks to compete for one spot. In 2021, Joe Milton beat out Hendon Hooker for the QB1 job to begin that season. Milton, of course, did not play well out of the gate and got hurt, which opened the door for Hooker to take the job and run with it. The same could happen between MacIntyre and Brandon, where whoever wins the job in fall camp doesn’t hold the job once the actual games start and the bullets start flying. That’s the beauty of recruiting well and stocking multiple extremely talented, high-upside guys like MacIntyre and Brandon. Their talent is obvious, and every Tennessee fan should feel good about Heupel and his offensive staff finding their long-term solution at quarterback this fall. It may not have worked that way with Iamaleava, but there is a great chance and a great opportunity for the Vols to check one of those final boxes in the Heupel era in Knoxville – develop an in-house, multi-year starter at quarterback with a high ceiling. The only thing better for Tennessee fans if either prospect flourishes this fall for the Big Orange is how much better everybody would then feel about 2027 and 2028.

I don’t know who will be QB1 after the dust settles in Knoxville this fall, but it’s a good bet that whoever it is will have not only earned it but also fought through a mighty tough schedule and is now better off for it in 2027 and beyond. There’s nothing more exciting as a football fan than finding your long-term answer at quarterback.

Not a thing.

With Aguilar out and either MacIntyre or Brandon in, Tennessee is in a fantastic spot to provide fans with that very feeling this fall.

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Team transfer portal report cards delivered in mid-February should be taken with a grain of salt. We can like what Tennessee football did this cycle, as I did, and still understand that I do not have a clue which new transfer will pop and which will not for the Vols next season. The Vols went 5-for-7 in the transfer portal last cycle, and hit home runs with Colton Hood, Joey Aguilar, and Wendell Moe in particular. Star Thomas was one of those hits for Tennessee, even though he had an up-and-down season in Knoxville. He was a valuable rotation piece alongside DeSean Bishop and Peyton Lewis. Thomas has moved on to the professional ranks, though, and Lewis hit the transfer portal and is now at Virginia. While Tennessee did take a tailback in Tulane’s Javin Gordon, it’s fair to wonder about the running back room next season.

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One of the key differences between the Gordon addition this cycle and the Thomas addition the last cycle is age and production. Thomas had rushed for over 2,000 yards at the FBS level when he arrived as a senior last year. Gordon entered the transfer portal after his first season at Tulane. He rushed for a little over 500 yards and five touchdowns. Thomas was more of a plug-and-play veteran to pair with Bishop and Lewis in 2025. How Gordon fits in with Bishop, Duane Morris, and Justin Baker is more up in the air. Suddenly, Tennessee’s tailback room is extremely young and inexperienced behind its workhorse in Bishop. With Tennessee not taking a running back in their 2026 recruiting class, Gordon, still a true freshman, sits somewhere in the middle as a recruit and transfer at Tennessee.

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There were a couple of other big names whopopped up in the transfer portal this cycle at tailback. Hollywood Smothers out NC State was one, Justice Haynes out of Michigan was another. The latter was a big name in the transfer portal cycle the previous year, too, as he transferred from Tuscaloosa to Ann Arbor. Both were extremely productive at their previous stops, with Haynes’ last game as a Wolverine including 26 carries for 158 yards and two touchdowns. Smothers did the majority of his damage early in the season for NC State, but he still finished the season averaging nearly 6 YPC. Haynes is on his third school in three years, this time returning to his home state to play for Georgia Tech. Smothers is at Texas along with former Arizona State tailback Raleek Brown, as the Longhorns took two tailbacks that were On3’s top-5 tailbacks in the transfer portal this cycle.

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Tennessee did not take a player like Smothers or Haynes, two highly productive veterans who are likely NFL-bound if next season goes their way. Gordon is, ostensibly, a multi-year swing for the Vols. Bishop played the workhorse back role well last season with his 182 carries. Only Dylan Sampson has carried the rock more times in one season in the Josh Heupel era, with his 258 carries in 2024. With Thomas out and Gordon in, along with Lewis and his 134 combined carries over the last two seasons, there is even less certainty about what the rotation looks like behind the former Karns star. With a Smothers or a Haynes as a one-year proven solution, you would not have to squint too hard to see a healthy three-man rotation at tailback with Bishop, Smothers, or Haynes, and one of Gordon, Morris, and Baker.

But Tennessee hasn’t rotated at tailback the last two seasons, something the team did often in the first three under Heupel. It might be a coincidence that in back-to-back seasons, Tennessee has had a huge gap in carries between its No. 1 and No. 2 guys. Tennessee had a top-10 scoring offense in FBS last season with Bishop as their workhorse. It’s fair to project that if Aguilar is granted another year of eligibility, the Vols will have another top-10 scoring offense in FBS, which would be four instances across six seasons under Heupel.

Tennessee did not have to add a big name like Smothers or Haynes. Even if they had, it would not be a guarantee that any of those top names would hit in Knoxville. Last season, only two of the top five tailbacks in On3’s transfer portal running back rankings popped at their new school, the aforementioned Haynes and Ahmad Hardy. The latter was the best addition of the bunch out of UL-Monroe, who ran for 1,600 last season at Missouri. Jaydyn Ott and Rahsul Faison both did not hit at their new SEC schools, and the No. 1 overall tailback in the cycle, Tulane’s Makhi Hughes, did not pop at Oregon and transferred to Houston.

One of the biggest reasons it would have made sense for Tennessee to splurge on a proven, one-year veteran in 2026 is the uncertainty at quarterback. As of this writing, no decision has been made on Aguilar’s 2026 eligibility. If he is granted another year to play football at Tennessee, the tailback depth is less of a talking point. If he isn’t, and the Vols roll with either redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon, the tailback depth should become more of a talking point. In the NFL, smart teams do everything they can to surround their young, franchise quarterbacks with team-friendly rookie deals while they can. Bishop is a good player, but Morris did not get the kind of freshman snaps that Jaylen Wright did in 2021 or even Sampson did in 2022. Aguilar’s 404 pass attempts last season were the most by any Tennessee quarterback under Heupel. Again, tailback depth will not matter as much if Aguilar gets his additional year. If not, the Vols will have to run the ball much more in 2026 to protect MacIntyre or Brandon.

Tennessee has finished in the top 20 in rushing more often than not under Heupel. However, the Vols finished 53rd nationally last season, their lowest mark under Heupel. It’s tricky, though, as Tennessee’s passing offense was a constant struggle in 2023 and 2024, while its rushing attack was in the top 10 both seasons. The Vols’ best two scoring seasons coincided with also being in the top-10 in passing offense in 2022 and 2025. The Vols did not have to add a Smothers or a Haynes in the transfer portal this cycle, or even a Cam Cook, but if it’s not Aguilar next season, you wonder more about the identity of the offense. Could Bishop do for MacIntyre or Brandon what Sampson did for Iamaleava in 2024? If Aguilar is back, I don’t believe it will matter that Tennessee did not take a veteran tailback in the transfer portal this cycle – if he’s not, though, it might.

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Tennessee football is going to look quite familiar on one side of the ball in 2026 and quite different on the other. On the whole, Tennessee has added 18 transfers as of this writing, along with 28 freshmen from their 2026 recruiting class. If the Vols add another piece or two from the transfer portal, head football coach Josh Heupel’s team will be just shy of 50 new faces within his program going into next year.

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On defense, under new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, the Vols may start as many as seven or eight new faces next season, with four or five being in the secondary alone. Coming off a season in which Tennessee ranked 115th in scoring defense against conference competition, roster churn on that side of the ball was needed. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a bit jarring to account for so many new faces on defense in 2026, the most since Heupel’s arrival in Knoxville in 2021.

The difference, though, is that after that roster churn going into Heupel’s debut season, the Vols finished 104th in scoring defense against conference foes. In six of Tennessee’s eight conference games in 2021, the Vols allowed thirty or more points. Tennessee was the only Power 4 school that finished in the top-10 in scoring offense that season that did not win double-digit games.

The following season, Heupel’s best year to date in Knoxville, the defense improved to 64th against conference foes. Not an elite unit by any means, but a unit good enough to qualify for the twelve-team College Football Playoff had it existed that season. In the three seasons Heupel has led a top-10 scoring offense in FBS, the Vols have won double-digit games once. The extreme disparity between the offense and defense in 2025 and 2021 was too vast for the Vols to be a real contender in college football. With five years of on-field evidence, it is fair to assume that Tennessee will never have a top-10 scoring defense against conference competition under Heupel.

And that’s perfectly fine.

Last season, Tennessee was once again the only P4 school to finish in the top-10 in scoring without winning double-digit games. Indiana, which won the national championship, Notre Dame, Oregon, Vanderbilt, Texas Tech, and Utah all won ten more games this past season. The Vols sat alone with their eight wins. This phenomenon has happened twice now under Heupel at Tennessee. While it is a frustrating statistic, it should be reassuring that after half a decade on Rocky Top, Heupel has orchestrated a top-10 scoring offense more times than not. He needs his defenses not finish in the hundreds more times than not.

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A Kinda Bad defense is more than enough oftentimes under Heupel.

I think it’s more than reasonable to expect Knowles, the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the sport last season at Penn State, to keep the Vols’ defense out of the hundreds in Year 1 in Knoxville. Somewhere closer to the sixties would suffice if Tennessee does what Heupel has already done once in Knoxville – building a top-10 scoring offense in back-to-back seasons.

A lot of that may come down to what happens with Joey Aguilar. With his collegiate eligibility still very much up in the air, it’s hard to project what Tennessee’s offense can realistically get to in 2026. Remember the 2025 group of top-10 offenses in the Power 4 that I mentioned earlier? Just one of those schools rolled with a second-year player at quarterback in CJ Carr at Notre Dame, and they obviously missed the CFP after dropping two big-time games in the season. In the SEC, if Tennessee rolls with redshirt freshman George MacIntyre, one can point to in-house success stories like Marcel Reed at Texas A&M, and the opposite, like with DJ Lagway at Florida. With South Carolina, Lanoris Sellers’ best season was his second in Columbia. Still, the average age of Heupel’s quarterbacks in his three seasons where the Vols finished top-10 in scoring was 23.6.

I don’t pretend to have any idea which way the offensive pendulum will swing next season. If you take the glass-half-full approach, the continuity on that side of the ball should be huge for Aguilar, MacIntyre, or even Faizon Brandon in 2026. Tennessee’s offensive line returns four of five starters, with Lance Heard the lone defection to Kentucky. DeShaun Bishop is back at running back. Ethan Davis is back at tight end. Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews are back at wide receiver. The competition for that third wideout spot between Radarious Jackson, Travis Smith Jr., and incoming five-star Tristen Keys is a good problem to have.

There is a scenario in which Tennessee’s best five offensive linemen this season all played under Glen Elarbee last season. That institutional know-how matters. From left to right, David Sanders, Sham Umarov, Sam Pendleton, Wendell Moe Jr., and Jesse Perry all played a lot of snaps for the Vols last season. Only time will tell how LSU transfer Ory Williams or West Virginia transfer Donovan Haslam factor into things. Losing both Heard and Bennett Warren was tough, but if Tennessee stays healthy on the offensive line, it’s hard to envision a scenario where they’re not better than they were in 2025.

So the offensive line should be better in 2026. What about at wide receiver and tight end?

The wide receivers got younger with the departure of their vertical threat, Chris Brazzell II, but Staley and Matthews should take another step forward. Tennessee should expect one of Keys, Jackson, or Smith Jr. to emerge as the third wideout Kelsey Pope can trust on the outside. You watch a single highlight of Tulane transfer tailback Javin Gordon, and your mind thinks back to Jaylen Wright. Of the 23 players who entered the transfer portal for Tennessee, sophomore tight end Jack Van Dorselaer stands to hurt the most, who is off to Oklahoma. Davis finished strong for the Vols this season, but availability will remain a concern until it is no longer a concern – Davis has appeared in six and eight games the last two seasons, respectively. Even with the addition of South Alabama transfer Trent Thomas, the Vols are thin in Alec Abeln’s room without JVD. Davis, DaSaahn Brame, Cole Harrison, and Thomas could all be just fine as a collective unit in 2026, but JVD seemed like the safest bet as a future multi-year starter at Tennessee.

It’s only late January, though. We’ve got a long way to go before it’s officially College Football Preview & Predictions season. The Vols could realistically have a 25-year-old or a 19-year-old under center against Furman inside Neyland Stadium on the first Saturday in September.

That’s a crazy difference.

Tennessee could start ten new faces on defense from a season ago. There was a lot of change this transfer portal and recruiting cycle for Tennessee, but there was also a sneaky amount of continuity, too. This upcoming season will be the toughest to project in Heupel’s six seasons at Tennessee, I suspect, but isn’t that the kind of thing that makes all of this so much fun?

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Congratulations to redshirt freshman George MacIntyre on being the next first blue-chip recruit to pan out in the Josh Heupel era on Rocky Top. Obviously, I’m kidding, but I’m kind of, ugh, well, not kidding, too.

Let me explain.

Tennessee has had a top-10 scoring offense nationally in three of Heupel’s five seasons in Knoxville. In 2021, 2022, and 2025, the Vols finished 7th, 1st, and 6th, respectively. Those offenses were led by two quarterbacks the fans were least excited about when they arrived on campus, Hendon Hooker and Joey Aguilar. In 2021, the Vol fan excitement was centered around Joe Milton. In 2023, the national folks’ excitement was centered around Milton again. In 2024, both the Vol fan and national folks’ excitement was centered around Nico Iamaleava.

Not a soul could have foreseen who has worked at Tennessee under Heupel thus far and who has not. Hooker even predicted his former teammate would win the Heisman in 2023. After those first couple of starts by Iamaleava, the former five-star player looked like a quarterback who could have legitimately been in that discussion, too, to begin 2024. For different reasons, it did not work out for either Milton or Iamaleava at Tennessee on the field in Heupel’s offense.

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It was easy to get excited about Joe and Nico. Both had all the arm talent in the world to be special at Tennessee. Fans did not view Hooker and Aguilar the same way when they arrived on campus. Heck, the former was not even a transfer portal addition by Heupel. Hooker and Heupel just ended up being a perfect pairing. Aguilar arrived in late May of 2025 and proceeded to lead the SEC in passing yards per game. He battled Kirby Smart and Georgia better than any prior Heupel quarterback had previously by a wide margin. Hooker would have likely been a Heisman finalist had he not gotten injured in that South Carolina ballgame. Hooker and Aguilar will be loved and adored by Vol Nation for many years to come, and rightfully so. But you can’t forget the majority sentiment towards them before the 2021 and 2025 seasons.

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Finding the right quarterback is hard. Eventually, though, Heupel is going to hit on one of these blue-chip quarterbacks. With the continual fan worry regarding MacIntyre’s weight, there is a lot of trepidation about rolling with the one-time five-star recruit in 2026. There is some cause for concern because MacIntyre did not garner many in-game reps this past fall. There is some additional cause for concern about how young and inexperienced the position room is right now, with five-star true freshman quarterback Faizon Brandon entering the fold.

Of course, Aguilar could also still get granted another season of eligibility next month, and this is all for nothing. However, let’s operate under the assumption that Aguilar is not coming back for a second season on Rocky Top. Sure, Tennessee added former Colorado junior quarterback Ryan Staub to the room as a veteran depth piece. However, his veteran presence in that room and for MacIntyre and Brandon is not the same as it was with Gaston Moore and Iamaleava in 2024. Moore played for this staff for years and knew the offense backwards and forwards. If Aguilar isn’t back, the quarterback room hasn’t looked this shaky from the outside since 2021.

Which is why I wonder if it’s a good thing for MacIntyre. With Iamaleava, it felt like universal excitement, particularly coming off that performance against Iowa in the Citrus Bowl. Folks had waited a long time to see him be The Guy at Tennessee. With MacIntyre, fans are a lot more nervous about taking the young blue-chip quarterback path once again. It’s a very different feeling rolling with MacIntyre rather than a veteran transfer quarterback who has guided his team to the College Football Playoff, like Sam Leavitt. Especially the year that the SEC is moving to a nine-game conference schedule. It’s a little scary for fans, that’s for sure. I get it.

But things were a little scary before this season, too, and the Vols were a handful of plays away from winning nine or ten games again. The offense made its way back into the top 10 in scoring, where it belonged under Heupel. It’s offseasons like this one where the Football Gods have been most kind to Heupel and his quarterbacks. We weren’t sure about Hooker and Aguilar, just like we aren’t sure about MacIntyre. Oddly enough, that might be my favorite reason to bet on him next season.

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I completely understand Tennessee men’s basketball fans who are very frustrated with head men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes’ eleventh team in Knoxville right now. The victory over No. 7 Houston, the Cougars’ only loss this season as of this writing, feels like a lifetime ago. The Vols are 2-5 in big-time match-ups since that victory over Kelvin Sampson’s team, which includes losses to Syracuse, Kansas, No. 13 Illinois, No. 17 Arkansas, and No. 19 Florida. On the other side of the coin, it was also less than a month ago that Tennessee beat the brakes off a top-20 Louisville team inside the Food City Center.

But again. I get it.

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There are many reasons that this is the case. The biggest being that so many other true freshmen five-star players are having unprecedented, spectacular seasons for their schools. Just take a gander at 247sports’ top-5 recruits in the 2025 class and try not to wince a little bit.

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Tennessee’s talented five-star true freshman Nate Ament, though, is having a Just Fine start to the season. For Tennessee to have any chance at reaching the Elite Eight for the third consecutive season, Ament is going to come on in a hurry for the Vols. To be fair to Ament, that can still very much happen as he has the talent, but we’re now in conference play, and that potential leap for the uber-talented wing needs to become a reality sooner rather than later. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology update has Tennessee as a 6-seed if the NCAA Men’s Tournament were to begin today. If that is in fact where the Vols are seeded in the Big Dance come March, it’d be the lowest-seeded Tennessee NCAA Tournament team Barnes has had. The next highest was that 2020-21 Tennessee team, which was a 5-seed and got upset by Oregon State in the first round.

I understand the angst amongst this fanbase right now about this team.

I do.

However, I also view the collective angst as a ringing endorsement of the Rick Barnes era at Tennessee. We’re frustrated because this team has gone to the Elite Eight in back-to-back years. We were spoiled with four years of an all-time great Vol in Zakai Zeigler. We found one of the biggest transfer portal gems of this era in Dalton Knecht. Barnes has won at least 27 games in three of the last four seasons. If the Vols didn’t run into one of the two best remaining teams in the Elite Eight in 2024, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to assume Tennessee makes the Final Four that season with Knecht. Quite simply, Barnes has had this program humming at an elite level for half a decade now, and it’s easy to forget that and to forget just how hard it is to sustain that.

It’s perfectly fine if this year’s team doesn’t have what the last four teams have had. The team that followed Barnes’ elite 2018-19 ball club, led by Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield, never got above No. 17 in the AP Poll and finished 17-14. The following season, Tennessee reached as high as No. 6 in the AP Poll. For the next four seasons, Barnes led Tennessee to rankings as high as No. 5, No. 2, No. 4, and No. 1, respectively.

So things have been good. Well, that’s not really true. Things have been great under Barnes, particularly these last four years. It was always going to be a challenge to replace longtime leaders like Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack, along with going all-in on a true freshman wing like Ament rather than older, budding stars out of the transfer portal like a Knecht or Chaz Lanier. There is still a lot to like about this team, whether it’s Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s preposterous accuracy on thirty-footers or DeWayne Brown’s endless motor or the emergence of Amari Evans. Sophomore guard Bishop Boswell needed to take a step this season, and he’s taken a much bigger one that I suspect a lot of folks might have predicted before the season, particularly shooting the basketball with his 57 percent from deep percentage three games into SEC play. He’s a fantastic story, easily my favorite of the season thus far.

So I’m not going to pretend to have any idea how the rest of the season unfolds for Barnes’ team. I do know that the angst about it is a good thing, though, and something that is to be appreciated simply because of all the success Barnes has had for so many years now. We’re frustrated not just because we care but because it has been a long time since things have been this frustrating. That’s a blessing in and of itself, I think, and why, regardless of how the rest of the 2025-26 season plays out for Barnes, he’s more than earned a bit of a step-back season in Knoxville.

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Tennessee football figures to be pretty active once the transfer portal officially opens on January 2. You don’t have to be a Certified Ball Knower to know that the Volunteers need to address the safety position in the portal. The Vols need to add a quarterback, whether that’s a high-dollar name or cheaper depth piece remains to be seen, but Tennessee has to add a body there. The Vols also need veteran help on the interior of the defensive line and need multiple bodies there to help bridge the gap with Tennessee’s vast amount of young, blue-chip talent.

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But are we sure there aren’t a couple of other positions that Tennessee should be swimming in deeper, perhaps more expensive, waters here in a couple of weeks?

I think there are a couple of positions where I could understand the line of thinking if head football coach Josh Heupel elected to dip his toes into the transfer portal market for these overlooked spots.

Let’s dive in below.

Linebacker

Of the three underrated spots I’m writing about today, linebacker is the position I feel most strongly about. There is no question that linebacker coach William Inge’s room is stockpiled with intriguing, young blue-chip talent. The problem is that outside of Jeremiah Telander now, most of those ‘backers will go into 2026 as still intriguing and young. With Arion Carter off to the NFL, I think it would make sense for the Vols to look to add a one-year guy like Tennessee did when they added former BYU linebacker Keenan Pili going into the 2023 season as a graduate transfer. Obviously, due to Pili’s terrible injury luck, his stay in Knoxville was longer than anticipated, but you saw and understood the vision.

Edwin Spillman and Jadon Perlotte shone and struggled at different points this season, but you don’t have to squint too hard to see that duo being a fantastic combination in 2027. In 2026, though, I think Tennessee has to really consider finding another Pili-like player that can help bring along these talented young pieces while still being a guy who can play at a high level for new Tennessee defensive coordinator Jim Knowles. Had Carter opted to return to Knoxville for one more season, I think running it back with your in-house guys would have been completely understandable. Now, I think it’d be too risky not to allocate some funds to find another Pili for 2026.

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EDGE/LEO

Former Tennessee star LEO James Pearce Jr. is having himself a phenomenal rookie season with the Atlanta Falcons. Former Tennessee star LEO Byron Young is also having another fantastic year for the NFC-best Los Angeles Rams, where PFF has him ranked 9th among all edge defenders this season. If history is any indicator, it would probably be wise for one NFL franchise to take Joshua Josephs if they need help on the edge in 2026 and beyond.

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For the last three, maybe even four seasons, though, Tennessee hasn’t had to wonder about the production and rotation at this premium spot on the football field. Former four-star LEO Caleb Herring and former five-star LEO Jordan Ross both have the potential to be early-round NFL guys. However, if you’re Heupel and Tennessee, you can’t be as certain about their 2026 production as you were about Josephs, Pearce Jr., and maybe even Young, too. Ross has 1.5 sacks in two seasons, and Herring graded out on PFF as the 782nd best LEO out of the 856 that qualified last season. What complicates matters with Herring is how great he played against Georgia, where he added two sacks. He added two on the road in Starkville against Mississippi State as well, which were critical plays for the Vols. After that ball game, though, Herring never had a pass-rush grade above 66, per PFF.

You wonder if Tennessee would be able to keep both Herring and Ross if they were to explore adding a high-profile LEO, and that’s what makes all of this so challenging. Tennessee was proven to be correct in betting on their young wideouts, Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews, last offseason. That could happen with Ross and Herring, too. LEO is a position, like linebacker, that I’m definitely going to be fascinated to see which path the Vols take.

Wide Receiver

With Chris Brazzell II opting out of the Music City Bowl, it seems as though freshman Radarious Jackson is going to have a huge opportunity to showcase his abilities and that he can be the third wideout alongside Staley and Matthews in 2026. However, five-star freshman Tristen Keys is also on the way for 2026, and although we haven’t seen a true freshman start right away in Knoxville under Heupel yet, Keys seems like he has the talent and upside to pull it off like a Ryan Williams, Cam Coleman, or Jeremiah Smit,h who all started as true freshmen in 2024.

Still, it definitely helped Tennessee to have a veteran transfer burner on the outside with Brazzell II and Dont’e Thornton Jr. the last two years. The conundrum, of course, is that both players broke out in their second year in the program. However, Bru McCoy did reel in 52 balls for 667 yards and four touchdowns in his first season on Rocky Top as a transfer. JaVonta Payton added six touchdowns in 2021 as a Mississippi State transfer and averaged 22.4 YPR.

How Jackson looks against Illinois in the bowl game will be something to monitor. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that Tennessee needs to add a veteran wide receiver to the mix who is both long and a speedster like Brazzell II and Thornton Jr. were for Tennessee these last two seasons. If not, the Vols are an injury or two away from being both extremely young and extremely green at wide receiver next season.

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Sure, we still have a couple of months to go before the return of Tennessee baseball. However, with the departure of Tony Vitello to the MLB to manage the San Francisco Giants, it’s so dang hard not to spend at least a little bit of time every day thinking about Josh Elander’s first season on Rocky Top next year. Yes, the coaching staff is going to look a whole lot different next season with Vitello, Quentin Eberhardt, and Frank Anderson all off to the Bay Area. What isn’t going to look different is the roster the Vols were going to trot out in 2026 with or without Vitello – and it’s a roster that should be one of the best in the SEC once again.

Tennessee baseball fans have had an emotionally taxing last couple of months. It’s still mind-boggling to come to terms with the fact that the Vols lost their coach, who had won a national championship the previous season and built the best and coolest program on campus this century, to the professional ranks in what could be a trailblazing move for college baseball coaches everywhere. It’s going take time to get used to the post-Vitello world at Lindsey Nelson Stadium, that much is obvious. However, what will expedite the healing process is pretty straightforward – winning a lot of baseball games.

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Thankfully, the good folks at D1Baseball, Joe Healy in this particular case, wrote a preview piece on Tennessee’s 2026 outlook, and if by the end of it that doesn’t light your fire for Year 1 of the Elander era on Rocky Top, then your wood is likely wet.

New pitching coach Josh Reynolds has a great problem to have, where he has four fantastic options for three key spots in the weekend rotation with returnee Brandon Arvidson, Rutgers transfer Landon Mack, returnee Tegan Kuhns, and Virginia transfer Evan Blanco. The bullpen is loaded with high-upside transfers like former ETSU pitcher Brady Frederick, former Kennesaw State pitcher Bo Rhudy, and former Duke pitcher Mark Hindy, not to mention the return of talented right-hander Brayden Krenzel and the arrival of top-50 true freshman lefty Cameron Appenzeller.

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On the lineup side of things, you have the surprising but needed return of outfielder Reese Chapman. Jay Abernathy could be a breakout year-two player in center field and at the top of the lineup. Veterans Blake Grimmer and Virginia transfer Henry Ford could be key power bats in the middle of the order and play in the outfield or infield. Tennessee has never had this many intriguing options at catcher, and the Vols could have the best defensive 2B-SS combo in the SEC with Ariel Antigua and Manny Marin. If Levi Clark finds consistency and power at the plate throughout SEC play, he could be in line for a big-time Year 2 as well. Even at DH, Elander has a great problem with options like Rice transfer Blaine Brown, Walters State transfer Tyler Myatt, and Bowling Green transfer Garrett Wright, all figuring to battle for at-bats in the coveted DH role.

Sure, there are going to be some big-time battles for starting nods over the next couple of months. But when you take a peek under the hood at what Elander and his first staff have to work with in his first season as the head coach, it’s hard not to want to hop in your car, buy a ticket, and sit in quite frigid conditions for a February Tuesday night Tennessee against Georgia State ball game just like old times when Vitello was in charge.

I was pleased when Tennessee athletic director Danny White chose to promote from within and give Elander this much-deserved opportunity to keep the university’s best program humming. I’m even happier when I read pieces like Healy’s at D1Baseball. It’s baseball, so big-time success is not guaranteed with a big-time roster, but, man, that doesn’t mean if you’re Elander that you’re not fired up about how good your first team in Knoxville could be in 2026.

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A lot of Vol Nation wanted to see Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel make a bold move this offseason following the Volunteers’ blowout season-finale loss to in-state rival Vanderbilt inside Neyland Stadium. Heupel, now going into his sixth season on Rocky Top – man alive, does time fly – decided to move on from longtime Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks. (Note: Banks was not out of work for very long, as former Tennessee offensive coordinator and new Auburn head football coach Alex Golesh swiped up the veteran defensive coach to coach safeties on The Plains next season.) That happened on Monday, and by the middle of the week, Heupel found Banks’ replacement in former Penn State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who stifled Heupel and the Vols’ offense in Columbus in the first round of the College Football Playoff last season with the Buckeyes. Interestingly enough, the Vols’ last two defensive coordinators have arrived in Knoxville via Happy Valley.

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With the hiring of one of the most well-regarded and biggest names in the sport to run his defense in 2026, Heupel is taking a big swing for the fences to fix a defense that ranked 14th in the SEC in scoring defense. Knowles was the highest-paid defensive coordinator in the sport last year with the Nittany Lions. Obviously, things imploded early for James Franklin and Penn State, who had national-championship expectations heading into the season. However, Knowles coached the No. 1 defense in the land the previous season at Ohio State and won a national championship. The year prior, the Buckeyes were ranked first nationally, as well, according to CFB Graphs. In his last season at Oklahoma State in 2021, his Cowboys ranked No. 5 overall in defense. Outside of this season at Penn State, Knowles hasn’t coordinated a defense outside the top-10 on CFB Graphs in FBS since 2019.

It’s a worthwhile swing for Heupel, to say the least.

With the hiring of Knowles, Heupel has now made bold moves in back-to-back offseasons. Last offseason, Heupel added new wrinkles to his offense, particularly the passing game. Going into last offseason, the sentiment from Vol Nation was similar to this year’s, just on different sides of the ball. The Vols were 55th in scoring against ranked competition last season and 77th in passing offense as a whole. After back-to-back seasons of below-average production through the air, it felt like Heupel needed to make some big-time adjustments last offseason to get the passing game humming similar to the way it did in 2021 and 2022.

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To Heupel’s credit, he and his staff made the adjustments. Chris Brazzell II could be a first-round draft choice in the 2026 NFL Draft after his breakout season. Redshirt freshman Braylon Staley won SEC Freshman of the Year and was the Vols’ best wideout all season long. Former five-star wideout sophomore Mike Matthews reeled in 50 receptions for 770 yards and four touchdowns for good measure as well. Even redshirt sophomore tight end Ethan Davis had a breakout finish to the season for Tennessee in the passing game.

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I don’t think Heupel and his offensive staff have gotten enough credit for using last offseason to evolve. Like Slim Charles told Bodie on The Wire, “The thing about the old days, they the old days.” For the first time since 2022, the Vols were top-10 in scoring in FBS again. Interestingly enough, the Vols were the only P4 team this season to have a top-10 scoring offense and then not win double-digit games. The same was actually true in 2021 as well, where the Vols were once again the only top-10 offense in FBS that did not end the season with double-digit victories. On a related note, the Vols were 92nd in scoring defense this past season and 90th in 2021.

Heupel does not need Knowles to guide Tennessee to the No. 1 defense in all of FBS. He needs him to get the Vols’ defense closer to where the Vols’ offense has been in three out of the last five seasons. Knowles should give Tennessee fans hope that the extreme disparities between the offense and the defense year-to-year could be a thing of the past with Knowles and Heupel leading the charge in 2026 and beyond.

I don’t know how Knowles will fare in Knoxville, but I do know that Heupel took a big swing last offseason, too, with his offensive adjustments, and it resulted in a top-10 scoring offense once again for Tennessee. Could this year’s big swing result in a similar story? It’s certainly plausible, and that should excite Vol fans everywhere.

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A frequent conversation my wife and I have on our nightly walks around the neighborhood this time of year begins with how she cannot believe how much later it feels outside, as daylight saving time is no longer in effect. It’s 6:00, yet it feels and looks like 10:30. It takes a while to get used to the drastic change every year. The way my wife feels whenever we step outside to begin our nightly trek is quite similar to how I think writing this very piece, with the knowledge that Tennessee will play in its final regular-season game this afternoon against Vanderbilt – it seems absurd.

To be sure, Tennessee vs. Georgia feels like it took place some time ago, but it doesn’t feel that long ago. Wasn’t Halloween just over a week ago, too? Obviously, that is not the case as the Volunteers play game No. 12 on their schedule at 3:30 PM EST inside Neyland Stadium for the last time in 2025 later today. It happens every year, just like the conclusion to daylight saving time, where it’s a bit discombobulating to come to terms with the change. After today, the Vols will not play another football game inside Neyland Stadium for many months.

Let’s dive into three things I’m thinking about heading into the biggest Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt football game in my lifetime and beyond.

Is History An Accurate Indicator Of What’s To Come This Afternoon?

I picked Tennessee to beat Vanderbilt in a shootout on the podcast this week with Matt, but I didn’t feel super confident about it. A few days later, and I’m just as torn about today’s ball game between the Vols and the Commodores. The Vols have never lost to Vandy when they’ve scored at least 30 points inside Neyland Stadium. Tennessee has scored at least thirty at home this season in every ball game outside of the Oklahoma debacle a few weeks back. Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel is 4-0 against the ‘Dores, and he’s scored at least 45 points in both home games against Vandy during his tenure. However, like that game against Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs earlier in the season, I’m not convinced 41 points will be enough to beat this iteration of Vanderbilt.

Tennessee Hasn’t Seen An Offense Like Vandy’s Since Georgia

Obviously, the Commodores have a lot more to play for this afternoon. A win gets Vanderbilt head football coach Clark Lea’s team to 10-2, and right in the thick of the school’s first College Football Playoff birth. Individually, star senior quarterback Diego Pavia could vault his way to the top of the Heisman odds with a big-time performance on the road in hostile territory this afternoon. Tennessee found itself in this position a year ago on the road in Nashville, but luckily for the Vols, the seas parted nicely around them to make it into the CFP. Even if Vanderbilt stuns Tennessee today in Knoxville, they’re likely going to need some help around college football to make the CFP field here in a couple of weeks. Still, the Pavia Factor looms largest to me. It’s fair, to me, to say this might be the biggest test the Vols’ defense has faced this season. Vanderbilt has the No. 1 adjusted offensive efficiency in the country, per BCFToys. Tennessee is 0-2 this season against teams in the top 10 in this metric, as Georgia sits at No. 2 and Alabama at No. 8. Two things could be true going into this rivalry game: 1) The Vols’ defense has played a lot better over the last month, and 2) The Vols’ defense hasn’t faced a challenge like Vandy’s offense in over a month. Georgia is the closest program in FBS to Vanderbilt’s in offensive efficiency, and the Dawgs scored 44 inside Neyland Stadium. The Commodores are 9th in YPA through this season – they were 46th when the Vols played them in Nashville last season. The Commodores are No. 5 in the country on third downs – Tennessee is 98th in third-down defense vs. SEC competition this season. It is going to be a gigantic challenge for defensive coordinator Tim Banks’ defense to get off the field on third down and limit the Commodores’ chunk plays.

Vanderbilt Is Going To Have Problems Stopping The Vols’ Offense, Too

On the positive side, though, Lea’s defense has had all kinds of problems bottling Heupel’s offense over the years, and I don’t think Saturday will be any different. Vanderbilt is 120th in FBS in giving up long-passing plays. This should be a big afternoon for the Vols’ fantastic trio of wideouts in Chris Brazzell II, Braylon Staley, and Mike Matthews. Similar to how Tennessee opened the game against Florida last week or against Georgia a couple of months back, this feels like a game where senior quarterback Joey Aguilar will need to start hot. A scenario where the Vols don’t score points on two or three drives in the first half, either via turnovers or quick three-and-outs, could spell doom for Tennessee in the second half. However, I think all Vol fans should feel good about where this offense is coming out of the Florida win in Gainesville last week. Ethan Davis has become a breakout force in the passing game in his increased role following Miles Kitselman’s injury, DeSean Bishop is back on track, and the wideouts are in a great spot to light up Vanderbilt’s secondary this afternoon. Coming into this season, Heupel has lost just one home game since the start of the 2022 season. If the Vols fall to the ‘Dores today, that’d be three losses at home in 2025. I don’t think that happens today, but man, Tennessee’s offense is going to need to roll as it did out of the gate against Georgia, I suspect. My gut says Tennessee wins 48-45 in a bonkers back-and-forth affair to put a bow on the 2025 season for the Volunteers.

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No. 20 Tennessee picked up another win last to remain undefeated to begin the 2025-26 regular season with a 91-66 victory over former Tennessee basketball assistant coach Rob Lanier’s Rice Owls. Unfortunately, the biggest storyline coming out of the ball game is the injury status of budding star redshirt sophomore JP Estrella, who left the game in the first half after getting tangled up and falling awkwardly in a scuffle for a loose ball. As of this writing, there has been no official word on the severity of Estrella’s injury, but it goes without saying that all of Vol Nation’s fingers are crossed that the former blue-chip recruit gets good news on the injury front in the coming days.

With that being said, some positive storylines came out of the Vols’ win inside the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena. One of which is that upperclassmen Jaylen Carey and Amaree Abram made the most of their opportunities Monday night.

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With sophomore guard Bishop Boswell missing his second-straight game due to injury, Abram got the start at the 2 and played well, particularly on the defensive end for the Vols. Abram may have only gone 1-for-7 from the floor, but he added two steals, four boards, and four assists, too. He can be a streaky scorer for Tennessee if he is also able to contribute in other ways outside of shooting, like he did against the Owls.

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I suspected before the season that Vol fans would really like Carey. I suspect they’re going to really like him when the Vols play the Commodores twice this season. On the floor last night, though, Carey was a +20 in seventeen minutes of action, snagged five boards, and was four-of-five from the floor with zero personal fouls. With Estrella’s emergence and hope that he avoided a serious injury last night, Carey does not need to carry a heavy load for Tennessee to get to where they want to go this season. They need him to play like he did last night and continue to build off that, especially with a huge game against No. 1 Houston on the docket for next week. With a healthy Estrella, combined with that version of Carey, and Felix Okpara, too, who flashed some great passing last night, Tennessee’s frontcourt could be as deep as it’s been in a long time under Barnes.

After the game, the UTK Daily Beacon’s Trevor McGee tweeted out a Carey quote following the game, saying, “Last year in practice, I wasn’t going up against a lot of guys like this ... I do stand on we’re the best frontcourt in the country.” If Carey and Okpara are going to play like that and Cade Phillips is going to continue to defend at the level he has been through four games, the Vols certainly could have one of the best frontcourts in the country this season. GoVols247’s Ben McKee tweeted another postgame comment from Barnes, who said, “Jaylen has really been focused the last week or so. He knows we need him. I’m really proud of him.”

Delightful stuff.

Carey gave the Vols fits last season in their two meetings, where he nearly registered a double-double in both ball games. The hope is that the junior does the same thing to other conference foes this season – especially now with Estrella’s uncertain status.

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With three losses on the season, No. 21 Tennessee’s odds to make the College Football Playoff field this season are slim to none. Still, a lot of Vol Nation is curious how head football coach Josh Heupel’s team finishes the final three games, starting with Saturday afternoon’s ball game against New Mexico State.

Sure, it would be nice to still control your playoff CFP destiny when you travel to Gainesville in two weeks or host No. 13 Vanderbilt the week after that, but that shouldn’t negate how Vol fans or the Tennessee football program, for that matter, treat those final two contests.

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With Florida, you have not been in a better position to win in The Swamp than this season in a very long time. I thought before the season that it could only help Tennessee for the game to be played in mid-November, the latest it’s been played, outside of the 2020 COVID season, since 2001, when it was played in December. The Vols won the game 34-32.

It’s interesting that Florida, not Alabama, has proven be the more challenging and frustrating rivalry game for the Vols in the Heupel era. The Vols, outside of this year, have played the Crimson Tide better than they have the Gators, particularly on the road. Florida has beaten Tennessee by an average of 18.5 in Heupel’s two previous trips to Gainesville – that number is 5.5 in Tennessee victories over Florida in Knoxville.

But Florida fired their head football coach a few weeks ago in Billy Napier. The Gators benched their five-star sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway in a blowout loss at Kentucky last weekend, and, as a result, might start a true freshman in Tramell Jones against the Vols when they arrive next Saturday. The Wilsons, Dallas & Eugene, two elite wideouts who happen to share the same last name, are lost for the season. The Gators will likely be riding a 3-game losing streak in the SEC when they play Tennessee next Saturday. Florida’s offense is 85th in Yards Per Play versus SEC competition this fall; it’s 115th in November. Everything that could have gone wrong for Florida seemingly has gone wrong.

Tennessee should beat Florida next Saturday.

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With the in-state rival Commodores, the roles are reversed from a season ago. Last fall, head football coach Clark Lea’s team had the opportunity to keep the Vols out of the CFP at home in the regular season finale. After jumping out to a 14-0 start, the Vols settled in behind a strong performance from Dont’e Thornton Jr. to beat the Commodores comfortably. This season, Vanderbilt, if they don’t get tripped up by Kentucky, will travel to Knoxville with a win-and-they-are-in opportunity. As odd as it is to write that the Vols can play spoiler to the Commodores’ CFP chances in Neyland Stadium, that’s exactly where things sit right now. If you look at that weekend’s slate, too, you won’t find many bigger games than Tennessee versus Vanderbilt. It very well may be another night game in Neyland.

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Vanderbilt is averaging 30 points per game on the road this year, and it feels like the Vols will need to score at least 30 to beat Heisman Hopeful Diego Pavia’s team. Last season, Vanderbilt looked like they ran out of steam offensively down the stretch, but that’s not going to be the case when they come to Neyland the final weekend of the regular season. In a lot of ways, the game and atmosphere should feel like a playoff game given the stakes. The ‘Dores beating the Vols on the road to punch their ticket to their first CFP would be something else, but the Vols answering the call and ripping up that ticket to put a bow on the 2025 regular season would be something else, too.

It would also be a whole lot of fun.

Yes, had Tennessee held on to beat No. 5 Georgia two months ago, this all feels different, and the Vanderbilt game might be a play-in game for both teams. That would be awesome, but I think these final two rivalry games can be awesome, too, even without the CFP implications for Tennessee in 2025.

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It goes without saying that Josh Heupel has done a great job at Tennessee. Or at least it should. If the College Football Playoff had already expanded the field to twelve before the 2022 college football season, the Volunteers would have qualified for the CFP two times in the last four seasons. With the Vols’ loss to Oklahoma on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium, the former national champion quarterback will, in all likelihood, not take Tennessee to back-to-back CFP appearances. That is naturally disappointing for Vol fans, but it should be reassuring that the program has been built back up to the point that getting eliminated from CFP contention in early November elicits this kind of pain and frustration.

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Things are pretty good on Rocky Top right now, but that doesn’t mean there is not room for improvement for the Tennessee football program. There are fair critiques to have about Heupel’s game-management choices a lot of times this season. On the offensive side of the ball, those new offensive wrinkles we heard rumblings about have come to fruition this season. The Vols are No. 2 in passing yards per game this season and No. 1 in Yards Per Attempt in the SEC. In 2024 and 2023, Tennessee threw 12 and 9 touchdown passes in conference play, respectively. Still, with two conference games remaining this year, quarterback Joey Aguilar has already thrown for 13 and is on pace to come up just a few touchdowns short of catching Hendon Hooker’s 21 touchdowns in 2022. The biggest question I had coming into this season for Heupel was whether or not Tennessee’s offense could evolve after back-to-back years of maddening struggles in the passing game, and his staff has done just that.

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Instead, my mind drifts more towards the defense in 2026 and beyond. I think it’s hard not to be very bullish on the Tennessee offense, with all the key playmakers set to be back in 2026. Defensively, I think defensive coordinator Tim Banks’ unit should be better, but I’m not as bullish as I am with the offense. Part of that is simply due to more roster attrition on the defensive side of the ball, where Banks may lose three players who go in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft with Jermod McCoy, Colton Hood, and Joshua Josephs. You could also lose top linebacker Arion Carter to the draft, not to mention the possibility that your top-two snap-getters at STAR are unlikely to be back next season. There are a lot of young pieces to like, but you don’t have to squint too hard to see a scenario where the Vols’ defense is closer to the 2025 version than the 2024 version in 2026.

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What’s interesting about the coaching carousel this cycle is how many highly-touted defensive coordinators might be available because of it. All the conversation has been about which head coaches are going where, but what about where some of these key assistants land for 2026? Ohio State head football coach Ryan Day won the coordinator lottery in 2024 when he paired veteran offensive whiz and former UCLA coach Chip Kelly with veteran defensive magician Jim Knowles. You wonder what South Carolina might look like this year if Dowell Logains had not left for the Appalachian State head-coaching job this past offseason or if Mike Denbrock had not left Baton Rouge to go back to South Bend two offseasons ago. Miami head football coach Mario Cristobal’s decision to snag the Minnesota defensive coordinator looked to be a gigantic deal before the Hurricanes’ loss at SMU on Saturday. (Miami went from 68th to 9th in scoring defense this year.)

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With Brian Kelly out at LSU, defensive coordinator Blake Baker is out there. With James Franklin out at Penn State, Knowles is out there. With Hugh Freeze out at Auburn, D.J. Durkin is out there. Because of how crazy this coaching carousel is trending to be, this might be Heupel’s best chance to take a huge swing that he might not have in any other normal year. That’s because Banks is a good defensive coordinator, and the defensive staff that he’s assembled is a great one. Banks has surrounded himself with sharp, veteran defensive minds in Rodney Garner, Levorn ‘Chop’ Harbin, William Inge, and Willie Martinez – he even added former NFL defensive coordinator Alan Williams as an analyst this offseason, too. I would understand if Heupel moved forward with Banks and that staff in 2026, but I would also get it if he went big-fish hunting this cycle, too, simply because of how unique it is across the board.

The same could be true for the offensive staff. If Baylor moves on from Dave Aranda, does Heupel look at somebody like Jake Spavital, who has overseen the Bears’ potent passing game the last two years with Sawyer Robertson under center? Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle has been solid at Tennessee post-Alex Golesh, but the question is whether or not you think you could, or should, try and upgrade at that spot? With the game-management questions for Heupel this season, does it make sense going into Year 6 for Heupel to hire a Spavital-type to pair with offensive analyst Seth Littrell to allow him to be more of a CEO in 2026? Do you go after a sitting head coach like North Texas head coach Eric Morris or San Diego State’s Sean Lewis for an offensive coordinator role to add even more experience to that side of the ball, like Banks has on defense?

Heupel should not be on the hot seat. Nor do I think he is or will be anytime soon. However, I do think it’s fair to wonder if this offseason is the time to take huge swings at either of the coordinator spots. You could make the case either way for both sides of the ball, and that’s why it interests me. There isn’t a right or wrong answer to it. Tennessee’s final three ball games may play a pivotal role in where this all goes.

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How can it be that No. 23 Tennessee opened the regular season in Atlanta against Syracuse over two months ago? Amazingly, there are only three games left in the regular season for the Volunteers. It happens every year, you blink and the college football regular season is nearly over. In another sense, though, the overtime loss to No. 5 Georgia feels like a distant memory. What also felt like a distant memory before Saturday night’s loss to the Sooners was redshirt sophomore tight end Ethan Davis’ preseason intrigue. The former Collins Hill Eagle (GA) played his best game as a Vol this season, so much so that a lot of folks, myself included, wondered why that ill-fated fourth-and-one pass that went to freshman Jack Van Dorselaer did not go to Davis.

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Davis has always been a super interesting prospect for the Vols. The Suwanee, Georgia, native made the 247sports 2023 Freaks List, but going into his third year in the system at Tennessee, he had not yet carved out a consistent role in the offense. He’s got the kind of size and pass-catching ability dating back to his time at Collins Hill, lining up as a wide receiver, where, at the very least, it felt like he could be a great weapon in the red zone for Tennessee.

While Davis had just one catch this season before last week’s game against Kentucky, his trajectory has drastically changed. Over the last two ball games, the former two-sport star has seven catches, a score, and is averaging 10.8 yards per reception. Sure, the final score is not what anyone hoped it would be against the Sooners, but the emergence of Davis is something a lot of folks should be excited about. It was a common talking point among lots of Vol fans, myself included, that he was a great preseason breakout candidate.

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Especially when you consider how the Vols utilized 12-personnel so much last season, the runway was ostensibly there for Davis and Kitsleman to thrive as two very different tight ends. Instead, the trio of Chris Brazzell II, Bralyon Staley, and Mike Matthews has all broken out. While the tight ends were a staple of last season’s passing game, things have swung back towards the wide receivers. This is what was needed to happen for Tennessee’s passing game after the last two seasons, but the tight ends getting a piece of the pie is imperative to the Vols maintaining their versatility in the passing game as well. It’s hard enough for opposing defenses to keep all of Brazzell II, Staley, and Matthews in check. If Davis has turned the corner, that’s one more major headache for opposing defensive coordinators to have to deal with.

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Davis is an easy guy to root for on this Tennessee team, and it’s taken time for him to get rolling in the passing game like he has the last two weeks, but it’s also a reminder to appreciate the ride of the college football season. It’s a long season, even if it doesn’t feel like it at times. Davis was an afterthought in September. Now, it’s November, and you’re wondering why he didn’t get the ball on the biggest play of Saturday night’s ball game. And kudos to Davis for not giving up on the season, even after missing time due to an upper-body injury, and working his way to this point where he looks like a fascinating weapon in the passing game for the Vols in these final three games of the regular season.

The Potential Mismatch Guy might be becoming The Actualized Mismatch Guy here in early November.

It’s not going to be easy for the Vols to win in the Swamp or take care of Vanderbilt inside Neyland Stadium later this month, and this offense will need all the help it can get to run the table. Davis showed on Saturday night that he could be one of those key helpers.

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No. 18 Tennessee tips off this evening against Mercer at 7:00 PM EST in their first regular season game of the 2025-26 season at the Food City Center at Thompson-Boling Arena. Indeed, with how Saturday night’s ball game went for the Tennessee football team against Oklahoma, the return of the Vols men’s hoops team will be a welcome break for a lot of Vol fans.

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There are so many things to be excited and intrigued by when it comes to Rick Barnes’ squad this season. For one, there is so much more depth on this year’s team than last year’s. For the third year in a row, the Vols seem to have found a star out of the transfer portal with Greeneville High School alum and Maryland transfer Ja’Kobi Gillespie. Another thing I wonder about is who replaces longtime leaders Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack? How does Vanderbilt transfer big Jaylen Carey factor in – is he a starter and heavy-minute guy or a rotation guy off the bench? How many true freshmen crack the rotation? And of course, could Nate Ament be the best true freshman we’ve ever seen at Tennessee?

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I can’t wait to see it all play out, starting tonight against the Bears.

Let’s dive into my biggest unknowns for Tennessee men’s hoops this season.

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1. It seems pretty safe to say Gillespie, Ament, and Felix Okpara are going to play heavy minutes for Barnes’ team this season, particularly in the second halves. The other two spots at the two and the four have so many different, intriguing options for Barnes and his staff to experiment with, though. Who wins the minutes-crunch battle between Bishop Boswell, Amaree Abram, Amari Evans, and Ethan Burg at the two? Does Barnes start and close with different guys in these first five games before Rutgers travels to Knoxville at the end of the month? Abram and Burg are the two older guys with higher offensive upsides, while Boswell and Evans are the two younger guys with higher defensive upsides. Ultimately, who meshes the best with Gillespie and Ament on the floor will matter the most, but this is a very different dynamic than what I’d be writing about if Isaac McKneely or Rodney Rice had opted to transfer to Tennessee this offseason.

2. It was going to be extremely difficult for Tennessee to replace a four-year player like Zeigler this season. While Gillespie is a very different player from the 2025 SEC Defensive Player of the Year, he should be excellent for the Vols this season. Maybe even better. With the depth inside and questions at the two, especially offensively, Gillespie’s shot-making is probably the most important facet to the Vols’ 2025-26 ceiling. The former Terrapin was a forty percent shooter from deep last season, while Zeigler’s four-year average at UT was 33 percent. Interestingly, Gillespie’s shooting and assist numbers have trended up every season of his collegiate career. Is there one final level for Gillespie to reach where he’s so dominant from deep and distributing the basketball that he can push for first-team All-American honors by the end of the season? He’s talented enough to press to be one of the best five-to-ten players in the country this season, and I wonder just how good he has to be for the Vols’ offense to be good enough to get to where they want to go in March.

3. I have never sold any of my real estate on JP Estrella Island. I believe he has all the tools and ability to be a big-time player inside for Barnes over the course of his Vol career, but does that happen this year or next? One thing I wonder about for Estrella is how crowded the front court currently stands with the emergence of true freshman DeWayne Brown and the addition of transfer Jaylen Carey. With Okpara being one of the best rim-running defensive fives in college basketball this season, he is obviously going to get heavy minutes for Tennessee. You can maybe move Brown, Carey, and Estrella back-and-forth at the four and five at times, but Okpara is a five who had the highest block-shot percentage in the SEC last season. Estrella should probably play the most at the five, too. However, maybe this year he finds his footing and carves out a consistent role in Barnes’ big rotation. Then, next year, after Okpara, in all likelihood, moves on, Estrella has the opportunity to become the heavy-minutes getter at the five. I am simply very curious how Barnes uses Estrella this season.

4. Freshman Nate Ament is going to play a whole lot of basketball for the Vols this season. That is obvious, but who else? How many other true freshmen earn Barnes’ trust and find consistent roles on this team? Tennessee obviously has Final Four aspirations, and they’re deep across the board with talent both younger and older. Does freshman guard Troy Henderson’s shot-making from deep earn him the backup guard spot behind Gillespie? Does Evans prove to be the best on-ball defender for Tennessee and get consistent minutes? Does the biggest wildcard in Brown continue his ascent and pass somebody like Carey in the rotation? It is a whole lot for Barnes to balance this season, but I do think it’ll be fascinating to see which of the three other freshmen besides Ament earn consistent minutes because all three have the potential to be core pieces of the next wave of multi-year stars for the Vols. Someone will, maybe a couple will. That’s super fascinating, too.

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The Dark Mode uniforms are back for the No. 14 Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium. In all likelihood, the Vols’ primetime game against No. 18 Oklahoma will be a de facto CFP elimination game between the two SEC programs. Under head football coach Josh Heupel, Tennessee has lost just two home games since the start of the 2022 season, and both were to Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs.

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Could the Sooners become the second team to beat Tennessee in Knoxville since the beginning of the 2022 season? It’s certainly possible, but I don’t think it’s likely on Saturday night.

Let’s dive into my three thoughts and one prediction for the ball game.

1. A lot of folks are wondering how Tennessee’s high-powered vertical passing game will fare against Oklahoma’s defense on Saturday night. I, too, have questions about how the offense will fare against a very stingy Sooners’ defense, but that’s very different than having concerns about the offense against the aforementioned Sooners’ defense. The Vols are No. 1 in scoring against fellow SEC teams this season, and they’re averaging 38.6 in five conference games. This includes two games against two of the top-3 teams in the conference, in Georgia and Alabama. In the two seasons that Tennessee has gone undefeated at home under Heupel– 2022 and 2024 – the Vols finished the season at No. 1 and No. 8, respectively, in scoring at home in all of FBS. The Vols No. 4 this year, sandwiched in between the two seasons the team won double-digit games. I think that matters. I wonder less about the Sooners’ defense in this game, and I wonder more about the Sooners’ offense. Head football coach Brent Venables’ team is averaging 20.5 points per game in SEC play, which is 104th in FBS. The Vols are nearly doubling that number in conference play. Then you throw in that the Sooners have played in just one true road conference game this season, against a really struggling South Carolina team at 12:45 EST, along with the fact that they’re averaging 16 points per game against ranked SEC teams. I really have my doubts that Oklahoma’s offense will keep pace with Tennessee in this ball game.

2. That being said, with how bad things are right now across the board for the Vols’ defense, the takeaways and then capitalizing on them will need to continue against Oklahoma. Tennessee turned two forced turnovers into two touchdowns against Kentucky last Saturday night. Redshirt freshman safety Edrees Farooq had a pick-six, and freshman linebacker Jadon Perlotte jumped on a hilarious Wildcat fumble sequence that gave the Vols the ball at Kentucky’s own six-yard line. Those two plays were the difference between Tennessee winning the game against Kentucky by a comfortable 22 points rather than just eight points. Tennessee might not be able to win this game with just one sack like they had last week in Lexington. This defensive line has never been healthier, so it’s time for them to get back on track at home against the Sooners. This feels like a big game for redshirt sophomore Caleb Herring, senior Joshua Josephs, and redshirt sophomore Daevin Hobbs. If this trio has a productive night, it’s hard to envision a scenario where the Vols don’t come out with a victory.

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3. Am I wildly off base for thinking this game is the biggest Gimme Game, if there even is one in this conference in 2025, left on the Vols’ schedule this fall? Tennessee hasn’t won in Gainesville since 2003, and No. 9 Vanderbilt is certainly a better football team than Oklahoma as the calendar turns to November. Every conference game has been arduous for Tennessee this fall, with an average margin of victory of 10.6. However, those thin margins were true in most of Tennessee’s victories in conference play last season, too. Five of the Vols’ eight conference games last season were decided by 10 points or less in 2024. In 2023, that number was just two. Simply put, close conference games have become a staple for the SEC in 2025, but for Tennessee, it’s been a staple since 2024. The best news for Vol fans who are tired of the nail-biting finishes this season is that Tennessee is 5-2 in those seven SEC games decided by 10 points or less.

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Final Prediction

I think Tennessee wins this game by double-digits. The Vols’ pass rush gets back on track at home, and Oklahoma is unable to string together enough long scoring drives that end with touchdowns to keep pace with Heupel’s team. Give me Tennessee 38-20 in a statement win for the Vols.

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No. 17 Tennessee beat Kentucky for the fifth-straight time on Saturday night in Lexington by a final score of 56-34 for the Good Guys. With that being said, there are two very different lenses through which one could view this game if you’re a Vol fan: 1) Tennessee’s combination of strong quarterback and wide receiver play gives the Vols a chance to beat anyone and everyone left on their schedule, and 2) Tennessee’s defensive issues could cost the Vols in any or all of the team’s final three conference games. Both points are fair and probably true with four games remaining on Tennessee’s schedule.

Tennessee’s offense averaged 8.5 yards per play in this game. If you remove Tennessee running out the clock and kneeling the football in their final trip to the red zone at the end of the ball game, the Vols were a perfect five-for-five in the red zone, scoring a touchdown on every single trip inside the Wildcats’ 20-yard line. With the win, the Vols moved back up to No. 1 in scoring vs. SEC foes at 38.4 points per game and moved to No. 2 in all of FBS in scoring at 45.6 points per game. Remember, the 2022 Tennessee Volunteers finished No. 1 in scoring in all of FBS at 46.1 points per game. Miami was No. 1 in FBS in scoring last season at 43.9 points per game. So, if the season ended today, the Vols would have the No. 1 scoring offense in 2024, 2023, 2022, and .01 away from 2022, too. The offense can be frustrating at times, sure. Still, on a night where Joey Aguilar converted nearly 80 percent of his passes and averaged 19.8 yards per completion, the offense is the least of the Vols’ concerns going into next week’s night game in Neyland Stadium against Oklahoma.

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Tennessee’s defense was a different story. The truth of the matter is that the Vols’ offense has to go into each SEC game with the understanding that they may have to score 40-plus to feel comfortable about escaping with a victory. That is just where things are with the defense. The Vols are giving up 36 points per game against conference foes this season, and if that holds, it would be their worst defensive scoring total in the Josh Heupel era. Tennessee is 15th in the SEC in giving up 10-plus yard scrimmage plays. The Vols are dead last in the conference in giving up 10-plus yard passing plays. Yes, things would be a bit different on the defensive side, especially in the secondary, if Jermod McCoy and Rickey Gibson II were available. It was crazy bad luck to lose McCoy to injury in January and later Gibson II in the first game of the season. It still should not, and cannot, be this bad if the Vols want to return to the College Football Playoff this season.

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This Kentucky offense wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders coming into Saturday night’s ball game against the Vols, either. The ‘Cats were 86th in offensive FEI, per BCFToys, and the worst remaining offense in conference play for Tennessee. Kentucky was 85th in Net Yards Per Play coming into the ball game. And yet, Kentucky accumulated nearly 500 yards of total offense versus Tennessee. They accumulated more first downs. Redshirt freshman quarterback Cutter Boley tossed five touchdown passes, which included two scoring plays that went for 71 and 56 yards. Boley had thrown more interceptions than touchdowns coming into the game and left with a 9:5 touchdown-to-interception ratio on the season. Yikes.

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It wasn’t all bad for Tennessee’s defense, though. Redshirt freshman Edrees Farooq had a pick-six that put the Vols up 14-0 early in the ball game. Defensive coordinator Tim Banks’ unit forced two turnovers, and it resulted in two touchdowns for Tennessee. True freshman Jadon Perlotte recovered a fumble and made the most of his opportunity with junior linebacker Arion Carter and redshirt junior Ben Bolton both out. Tennessee forced Kentucky to go 0-for-6 on third-and-long chances. The Vols had 6 TFLs.

Tennessee also had just one sack overall in the ball game. The Vols, who were No. 1 in FBS in sacks just a couple of weeks ago, have registered a single sack in their last two games. The secondary is what it is at this point unless McCoy returns sometime in the final quarter of the regular season. However, the disappearing sack total is one of the more surprising developments over the last two weeks for the Vols. Tennessee is the healthiest it’s been on the defensive line all season, and they’re just not getting home. Tennessee had fourteen sacks in its first four SEC games. If the Vols are going to run the table and beat Oklahoma, Florida, and Vanderbilt, they have to start getting home again. The talent is there, and the numbers have been there, but the unit has to get back there.

So we’ll see how it all plays out for the Vols in the final four games of the regular season. I would not take the return of Tennessee’s chunk plays in the passing game for granted. The trio of Chris Brazzell II, Braylon Staley, and Mike Matthews is an absolute delight. Outside of maybe Alabama and Texas A&M, is there a more fun trio of passcatchers out there in this conference right now? One week it’s Staley, this week it’s a combination of Brazzell II and Matthews. Vol fans were dying to see this version of Heupel’s offense return after the last two seasons, and it has. Tennessee’s defense is a mess, but, man, this offense is a whole lot of fun again, and that’s not something you could say after the previous two seasons on Rocky Top. It might be good enough for the Vols to win out, and the defense might be bad enough to stomp that out. Either way, I’m excited to see how it all plays out for the Big Orange.

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