Terrific Tennessee Tuesday: Ethan Davis
The third-year tight end had his best game yet as a Vol versus No. 11 Oklahoma on Saturday night.
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.
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.
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.