The Tennessee Wide Receiver Conundrum

It's easy to see how good the Volunteers' wide receiver room could be in 2026 and beyond. It's a whole different deal in 2025, though.

All seven scholarship wide receivers on Tennessee’s roster this upcoming season are blue-chippers. That much is true. Sure, Chris Brazzell II was a three-star recruit out of high school, but he was a four-star transfer when he transferred to Tennessee from Tulane last year. It’s the opposite with Amari Jefferson, who was a four-star recruit out of high school at Baylor but was a three-star transfer out of Alabama in the winter transfer portal window. Each of Tennessee’s true freshmen wide receivers this cycle – Radarious Jackson, Travis Smith Jr., and Joakim Dodson – was a four-star recruit on at least one national recruiting service. Tennessee’s new projected starters, alongside the lone veteran Brazzell II, are Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley, who were five and four-star recruits, respectively, in the previous recruiting cycle. With Jefferson now in the fold, Tennessee wide receiver coach Kelsey Pope has three of the top-35 wideouts from the 2024 class wearing orange and white this fall.

And yet, this is the only position group on offense that I’m concerned about going into this season for the Volunteers. All eyes are on the quarterback battle between Joey Aguilar and Jake Merklinger, sure, but head football coach Josh Heupel has won 19 games with below-average quarterback play in back-to-back seasons. Against Syracuse on August 30 in downtown Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Heupel will officially start his fourth different quarterback to open the season in four seasons. Four QB1s in four years is a lot. And yet, he has won thirty games across the last three seasons. Sure, the quarterback position is important, but when the Vols lost football games last season, there was a direct correlation between a loss and now-Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Dont’e Thornton Jr. not being a factor in the ball game. Against Georgia, Ohio State, and Arkansas, the former Oregon transfer wideout had just two catches for 56 yards and zero touchdowns combined. A lot of Tennessee fans have spent the offseason wondering who will replace Nico Iamaleava or Dylan Sampson this fall. However, I have spent a lot of it wondering who is going to replace Thornton Jr. – Tennessee’s lone game wrecker a season ago, who led FBS in yards per catch at 25.4.