An Offseason of Change for Tennessee Football
The Volunteers are going to look very different in some places, but very familiar in others next season.
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.
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.
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?