Tennessee Needed Mike Matthews Back in 2025 and That Happened

The former five-star recruit is back with the Vols for his sophomore season.

Jan 03, 2025

Happy Friday, folks. Welcome to ‘Cut To The Chase’, a daily Tennessee Vols newsletter here at Vols Hub. Every day you’ll find in this jam-packed newsletter my Tennessee Volunteers essay of the day, what’s new with ‘The Chase Thomas Podcast’ and ‘Vols Hub’, interesting Vol media nuggets, how to keep up with everything I’m doing each day covering the Vols and much more.

If you’re a Vol fan, please make sure you subscribe below so you never miss an issue.

A fascinating Tennessee football offseason only got more fascinating on Friday when it was reported that former five-star wideout Mike Matthews would not be entering the transfer portal after all. Indeed, Vols fans from all over breathed a sigh of relief that the Lilburn, Georgia native would be back for his sophomore season on Rocky Top.

Sure, there is still a lot of work to be done in the wide receiver room this offseason. Tennessee is reportedly in on Zachariah Branch out of the transfer portal, who is the lone top-20 wideout remaining in the winter cycle thus far. Tennessee is bringing in three blue-chip wide receivers in Travis Smith Jr., Radarious Jackson and Joakim Dodson, with the latter not being an early enrollee this January. Even with Matthews back in the fold, the Vols still have just six scholarships players in the room and three of them are true freshmen.

So the Vols have more work to do.

It looks like that begins with former Baylor two-sport star out of Chattanooga Amari Jefferson. The redshirt freshman officially entered the portal this week and On3’s Pete Nakos and Steve Wiltfong both logged a prediction for Jefferson to wind up with the Vols. As of this writing, it’s not official but if the folks at On3 are correct, that’d be a solid pull from Josh Heupel and his staff to add another talented underclassmen to an albeit young, but talented, wide receiver room in 2025.

That would bring Tennessee’s scholarship total to seven players at wide receiver in 2025. However, six of those seven players are underclassmen with all of them being freshmen or redshirt freshmen outside of Matthews. It’s a talented bunch of young wideouts, but they’re young and inexperienced. It seems that with Matthews back and Jefferson trending to Tennessee, the focus has to shift to at least one proven upperclassmen. Maybe that’s Malik Benson out of Florida State? Maybe it’s Benson and another veteran we don’t know about that is on the Vols’ radar?

A lot of folks have been waiting to see fresh new, talented faces get an opportunity at wide receiver at Tennessee. With Matthews back, you figure he’s going to a big part of Tennessee’s passing game in 2025. Former Tennessee and South Carolina native Jalin Hyatt made a huge jump for the Vols in his second year in the system, third with the program overall. Could that be the case for Stayley, another former four-star South Carolina native in the slot? That’s certainly plausible. Could Smith Jr. play right away on the outside in a role that Tennessee fans thought Matthews might play as a true freshman this past season? Also plausible.

With so many veterans of the program like Kaleb Webb, Chas Nimrod, Squirrel White and Nathan Leacock entering the transfer portal along with Bru McCoy and Dont’e Thornton Jr. moving onto the NFL, even if the Vols add a veteran or two to fill out the remaining spots in the Tennessee wide receiver room for next season, it doesn’t seem like there is anyway the young blue-chip players do not get every chance to shine for this football team in 2025.

That’s pretty exciting. It’s also a bit frightening. I understand feeling both emotions about the Tennessee Wide Receiver Youth Movement next season. To this point, the Vols wideouts who have developed into NFL-caliber players were either transfers like Velus Jones Jr. and Thornton Jr. or holdovers from the previous staff in Cedric Tillman and Hyatt. Webb, White, Nimrod and Leacock were all wideouts the current staff brought in and all four are out the door coming off a season where the Tennessee passing game was 94th in the country in conference play.

Share Vols Hub

For the Vols to get back to the College Football Playoff next season, they’re going to win a game or two they haven’t won in a long time – it could be Georgia in Knoxville, or it could be Florida in Gainesville or even Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Zero SEC teams made the CFP this season with three or more losses. For Tennessee to win one of those three games in 2025, the passing game has to be drastically better than what we’ve seen the last two seasons for the Vols. One of the young wideouts like Matthews, Stayley, Smith Jr., Jackson or even Jefferson if he does end up committing to the Vols this transfer period, has to have a breakout season. In the two seasons that Tennessee has not won double-digit games under Heupel the Vols traveled to Tuscaloosa and Gainesville and hosted the Bulldogs in Knoxville. The best way to remedy that the third go around is the passing game to look closer to 2022 or 2021 rather than 2023 and 2024.

It’s not all on the wideouts, either. Tennessee’s offensive tackles had a brutal year overall. Former five-star OT transfer Lance Heard has to make the leap at left tackle protecting Nico Iamaleava’s blindside better in 2025. Five-star freshman David Sanders Jr. has to be a Darnell Wright at right tackle out of the gate, too. All of the Vols’ offensive issues do not ultimately fall on the wide receivers. The offensive line has to be a lot better in pass protection in 2025. The quarterback has to be better throwing the deep ball and throwing guys open in 2025. The running backs have to be better as a collective unit with Dylan Sampson off to the NFL.

Give a gift subscription

But yes, the Vols have to get more out of the wide receiver position in 2025. Tennessee has to add at least one more big name, upperclassmen out of the transfer portal. Tennessee has to figure out how to make their vertical passing attack thrive once again in 2025. Year 5 is a huge year for Heupel and his staff. He’s done a tremendous job since arriving at Tennessee, that much is obvious. However, a lot of SEC teams got better this offseason. Tennessee’s 2025 schedule is tougher than their 2024 schedule. Oklahoma added the No. 1 quarterback in the transfer portal and his OC and could absolutely give the Vols problems when the Sooners come to town in November. The Vols even have a much more arduous ACC test in Atlanta in the regular season opener in Syracuse.

It’s big for Tennessee to get Matthews back. It’s big that in the past that the second year in the program has been huge for Vols wideouts like Thorton Jr. and McCoy. With Matthews, Brazzell, and Stayley all back you feel good one will breakout. You might need two of the three to breakout depending on who else Tennessee adds out of the transfer portal in the coming weeks.

But the Vols retained Matthews, which is great news for the program and another positive development for Tennessee’s offense going into next season.

STRAY SIDE NOTE

As you can see, we’re live here at VolsHub.com. If you simply type in those seven words in your web browser of choice, you’ll land here for what I hope is both really fun and really informative Vol talk.

So if you like what you read today and you have not already go ahead and bookmark ‘volshub.com’ today to make it easier to find the site if you miss one of my emails.

Thanks!

LATEST EPISODE OF THE CHASE THOMAS PODCAST

Chase Thomas is the Sports Renaissance Man, Atlanta Sports Guy & VFL. On today's program, Chase is joined by Rocky Top Insider's Ryan Schumpert to air their 2024 Tennessee Volunteers football airing of grievances, what happened to the Tennessee passing attack, relying too much on Dylan Sampson all season long, why the Vols don't incorporate more mesh concepts, the Tennessee pass rush in big games and much more.

Host: Chase Thomas

Guests: Ryan Schumpert

Listen via Apple l Spotify l Google l Stitcher l Download l RSS l YouTube

APPLE

SPOTIFY

The Vols Hub Daily Column Schedule

Each day, I write a different column over here on VolsHub on the Tennessee Vols all year long.

MONDAY- 48 Hours After Tennessee Vols Recap

TUESDAY- Terrific Tennessee Spotlight

WEDNESDAY- Tennessee Vols Wednesday Wonder

THURSDAY- Know The Foe Vols Game Preview

FRIDAY- 3 Thoughts & 1 Prediction For The Tennessee Vols

SATURDAY- Instant Reaction To Latest Tennessee Vols Game

SUNDAY- Stock Report For The Tennessee Vols

The Chase Thomas Podcast Lineup

There are a lot of different ways to stay locked in on all the Tennessee Vols podcasting coverage I’m putting out every day.

Below is my weekly podcast lineup, so you always know what’s coming down the pike each day on the program. (Note: There are always surprise special Tennessee Vols guests that pop in throughout the week as well. Some examples include Volquest’s Brent Hubbs, Tennessee CF Hunter Ensley, 99.1 The Sports Animal’s Tyler Ivens, GoVols247’s Ryan Callahan, Tony Basilio, Sports Source’s John Pennington and so many others.)

MONDAY - A Pod Divided w/ Fellow University of North Georgia alumni Matt Green

TUESDAY - Tennessee Vols Sports Guys w/ Rocky Top Insider’s Ryan Schumpert, Saturday Down South’s Ethan Stone and Omaha Production’s Jack Foster

WEDNESDAY - More Important Issues w/ Landon Raby & Caleb Mitchell

THURSDAY - A Pod Divided w/ Fellow University of North Georgia alumni Matt Green

FRIDAY - Vols Hoops Hour w/ Vol Report’s Ryan Sylvia

FRIDAY DOUBLE FEATURE - Vols Best Bets & Tennessee Baseball w/ Omaha Production’s Jack Foster