I have no idea who Tennessee’s playmakers will be, and neither do you
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When I saw the tweet, I immediately thought of 2024 Oklahoma.
For those who understand just how the Sooners’ season played out, that’s not exactly a positive flashback. If you recall, Oklahoma went into its inaugural SEC season with injuries at receiver, which snowballed into the top 5 wideouts on the roster being out by late September. A new starting quarterback, Jackson Arnold, was benched before halftime of the Sooners’ inaugural SEC game.
I don’t have to remind Tennessee fans about that night in Norman. They were the beneficiaries of OU’s offensive dysfunction. Josh Heupel won his highly anticipated revenge game at alma mater Oklahoma, and it was the preamble to the Vols’ first Playoff berth.
Fast forward to the start of 2025 fall camp. I’m not sure what Tennessee’s question mark at receiver is the preamble to, but I do know that when I saw this tweet from Adam Sparks, I immediately thought of 2024 Oklahoma:
Woof.
That could be the sound of Smokey trying to will Tennessee’s offense to a scoring drive. Lord knows the Vols’ mascot got plenty of practice in that area last year when Tennessee averaged 25 points per conference game, which included a stretch of 3 consecutive first halves without a point. That drought came after the Oklahoma win. Go figure that Tennessee still managed a 2-1 record in those games, thanks in large part to the efforts of SEC Offensive Player of the Year Dylan Sampson and Tim Banks’ elite defense.
That’s ancient history, though. More topical of an issue in Knoxville is becoming painfully obvious.
Who in the world are the Vols’ playmakers going to be?
I don’t know, and you don’t know. Maybe that’s OK, and maybe it’s 2024 Oklahoma. Time will tell.
You could’ve asked that question about the 2025 playmakers when Sampson declared for the NFL Draft, or when a disappointing group of receivers lost its top 3 guys (2 via NFL Draft, 1 via transfer portal). It became an even bigger issue after the Nico Iamaleava drama played out, which meant that the Vols’ 2025 starting QB would have, at most, 9 FBS passing attempts in a Tennessee uniform.
But let’s talk about those WR issues because that’s what brought us here today
Yes, it is indeed an issue. Say what you want about Iamaleava and whether he would’ve excelled with the 2025 surroundings. What’s undeniable is that a new starting quarterback desperately needs fall camp to get on the same page as the team’s starting receivers. The expectation is that 2 of those will be former Tulane transfer Chris Brazzell, who has been out with an unspecified injury, and former 5-star receiver Mike Matthews, who was added to the injury report in the 4th practice of fall camp (per Adam Sparks).
Not great.
Even if those guys were fully healthy and daily staples on whatever highlight clips that Tennessee puts out on social media, they’d still be massive question marks. We’re talking about 2 guys who combined for 36 catches, 423 yards and 4 touchdowns. By the way, 98 of those yards and 2 of those touchdowns came in the Kent State game when the Vols were basically playing against air. Matthews was held to 7 catches on the season, only 4 of which came vs. SEC competition. That’s not necessarily a sign that he’ll fail to live up to his 5-star billing, but he’s being asked to take a giant step after he was mostly invisible as a true freshman.
With both Matthews and Brazzell sidelined on Sunday, that meant that Tennessee’s lone active wide receiver who played last year was redshirt freshman Braylon Staley, who recorded 3 catches for 21 yards on 83 snaps, 51 of which came in the disastrous, injury-riddled offensive showing at eventual-national champion Ohio State. Here are the 4 scholarship receivers who were available at Tennessee’s practice on Sunday:
- Redshirt freshman Amari Jefferson (0 snaps in 1 season at Alabama)
- 4-star Travis Smith Jr. (enrolled in January)
- 4-star Radarius Jackson (enrolled in January)
- 3-star Joakim Dodson (enrolled in May)
In Tennessee’s ideal 2025 world, Staley mans the slot while Brazzell and Matthews hold down the outside receiver positions after minor fall camp absences that are afterthoughts by September. Captain Miles Kitselman becomes an even bigger factor in the red-zone while potential 2-way player Boo Carter moves past his well-documented discipline issues to start fall camp and morphs into the dynamic weapon that Tennessee fans saw glimpses of in his true freshman season.
And of course, that’s also dependent on either Jake Merklinger mastering the Heupel offense after he redshirted as the third-string QB in 2024, or UCLA transfer Joey Aguilar becoming the best version of himself and not leading the nation in interceptions like he did in 2024 at Appalachian State. What’ll happen there? Who knows?
What’s clear is that Tennessee’s ideal world has a ton of offensive boxes to check.
The spin zone for Tennessee’s mounting injuries at receiver is that the 2023-24 groups were underwhelming, and it didn’t get in the way of 19 combined wins with that aforementioned first Playoff berth. That’s because Heupel has an elite defensive coordinator in Banks, and the Vols continued to find success in the ground game.
Let’s focus on the latter because if there’s a way for 2025 Tennessee to avoid 2024 Oklahoma comps from continuing, that’s it.
There’s a reason why I made this question about “playmakers” and not just receivers
You might say that questioning Heupel’s ground attack is like questioning if Tennessee fans care about football. On the surface, both seem silly. At this time last year, Sampson was an intriguing breakout candidate, but he was hardly being billed as someone who would waltz his way to the SEC rushing title in his first season as a starter.
In 7 seasons as a head coach, Heupel’s rushing offenses all averaged at least 199 yards. The 2022 group was the only one that failed to average 200 yards per contest, but it also led the nation in scoring and produced Biletnikoff Award winner Jalin Hyatt. In short, Heupel has earned some blind faith with finding ways to run the football.
It is, however, worth noting that Tennessee’s offensive line returns just 1 starter, and it was the scrutinized Lance Heard at left tackle. It’s also worth noting that in atypical fashion for the Heupel offense, the 2024 ground attack didn’t feature a true shared workload. Before 2024, he had never had a back eclipse 160 carries. Sampson then had a whopping 258 carries (No. 9 in FBS) while the next-closest back was DeSean Bishop with 74 carries. That was the byproduct of injuries combined with Sampson’s emergence.
In theory, Bishop should be the next man up as a playmaker after he averaged 6 yards per carry. In reality, we’re talking about someone who didn’t have a run of 20 yards after the aforementioned Kent State game. After that contest on Sept. 14, he had 52 carries for 233 yards without a rushing score or a catch in the passing game. He also had just 5 runs of 10 yards after that Week 3 laugher. The lower-body injury that he suffered in the Week 10 win against Kentucky limited his availability down the stretch, but the good news is that the former walk-on is back healthy at the start of fall camp.
Will Bishop take off behind a new-look offensive line? That’s possible, but not imminent.
Perhaps Duke transfer Star Thomas will emerge after he was 4th in the ACC with 47 missed tackles forced. Thomas was also held to 3.8 yards per carry against Power Conference competition, and there’ll be questions about his scheme fit as a predominantly zone-heavy runner throughout his college career.
Sophomore Peyton Lewis has limited experience in the Heupel offense after he played mostly down the stretch in Bishop’s absence, including the Ohio State game when Sampson was banged up and Bishop was ineffective. One could look at that box score and think that Lewis’ team-high 77 rushing yards were a promising sign of things to come, but setting expectations based on that performance would overlook the fact that 63 of those yards came in the final minutes when Ohio State led 42-10. His only other game with a run of 20 yards came against … you guessed it (I should stop taking shots at 2024 Kent State).
While there’s at least a decent chance that Tennessee’s offense is fueled by a versatile ground attack, questions are everywhere.
Consider this Heupel’s toughest coaching job to manage so far
Wait, what about 2021 Tennessee when Heupel inherited the remains of the Jeremy Pruitt era? I’d argue that expectations were incredibly low in the post-Pruitt era, and Heupel also took over that roster just before transfer portal rules loosened and undergraduates were allowed a 1-time transfer. Winning 7 games, while challenging, exceeded a bar that began in the SEC basement.
Tennessee is no longer operating in that space. It’s operating in a space that’s months removed from completing its best 3-year stretch in 2 decades. And yet, it has a roster that’s loaded with uncertainty that goes well beyond the quarterback position.
Here’s all you need to know about Tennessee’s preseason outlook; the Vols had 3 players earn preseason All-SEC honors. That was captain Arion Carter, the not-practicing-with-the-team-yet Boo Carter and Jermod McCoy, who was a Jim Thorpe Award semifinalist as one of the nation’s top corners in 2024, but more recently tore his ACL while working out in Texas in January.
That feels fitting for how things have gone this offseason. Since the Vols overcame a slow start at Vanderbilt to close the regular season and lock in a Playoff berth, it’s been a series of unfortunate developments.
Sunday’s scarce receiver situation was more of the same. Last year, Oklahoma showed why there are only so many moving pieces that an offense can take on before it collapses. Heupel has earned the right to show that he can overcome similar uncertainty. In 4 years on the job, he elevated the Vols’ floor to places that his 4 Tennessee predecessors could’ve only dreamed of.
But whether he admits it or not, a nightmare offseason has hardly been the ideal Year 5 preamble.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
