Josh Heupel says freshman WR could play ‘a good amount’ in November
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Josh Heupel’s team has hung around long enough this season to still be in the mix for an SEC title and College Football Playoff berth as November begins.
His Volunteers are ranked 16th, with a 6-2 overall record and a 3-2 mark in the SEC, and with 8th-ranked Kentucky coming to Knoxville for a primetime showdown (6:15 p.m. ET, ESPN) on Saturday, the stakes will never be higher for Tennessee.
The quarterback situation this season in Knoxville has been a roller-coaster ride this year, and so the Vols’ wide receivers have had to adjust to multiple signal-callers throwing them the ball this year. There is still plenty of improvement to be had from that wideout room, and that includes 5-star prize TK Keys, a true freshman out of Mississippi who hasn’t even scratched the surface of what he can do at Tennessee.
Keys has caught 6 passes for 54 yards and 1 touchdown this season, only registering catches in 3 out of the Volunteers’ 8 games in 2026. In Keys’ defense, 1 of those games was the big victory over Alabama, when Keys caught 2 passes for 13 yards, so Keys has shown a brief glimpse of what he can do on the biggest of stages.
The potentially positive part for Keys, whose 1 TD this year came in the season opener against Furman?
His head coach believes he’s due for a breakout in November. During Josh Heupel‘s session with reporters on Monday, he said that he thinks Keys will play “a good amount” this month.
This month, there will be a ton of big games, especially if Tennessee keeps winning, and so Keys could end up having a major impact on the outcome of the Vols’ season.
So far, it’s been slow out of the gate for Keys, but that could change in a hurry as November goes on and the stakes keep climbing.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
