Josh Heupel might have to do something he historically hasn’t this season and that’s playing young wide receivers.
Three weeks out from the start of the 2025 College Football season and that might be the Tennessee head coach’s only option.
Chris Brazzell Jr. is Tennessee Football’s only wide receiver with legitimate playing time last season.
He’s also your only veteran player from last year’s team.
Everyone else is young, they’re new to the system, or they haven’t done enough for you to know their name. Even the Alabama transfer in Amari Jefferson is an unknown commodity, because he was injured all last season with the Tide.
There are 16 players in the wide receiver room, five are juniors or redshirt juniors.
Brazzell’s been injured all fall camp and didn’t participate in the scrimmage. That is, until Monday morning when he was a limited participant in fall camp.
Rewind to last season and he played in all 13 games with nine starts.
He hauled in just 29 receptions, which was third best on the team, but his season-high for catches in a game was five. Even so, he tallied 333 receiving yards and a pair of touchdowns.
In 2025, there’s no question Tennessee looks to him to carry more of the load. Especially when you consider the quarterback competition is still ongoing, they’re running out of time to build a connection between Brazzell and Q1, 2, and 3.
The role he fills within Heupel’s offense is crucial, he’s designed to help stretch the field with deep passes. Better yet he has most experience with Tennessee’s route tree, regardless of how limited the critics say it is.
Now the real problem is injury plaguing the room.
Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley are not at full strength.
Right now, Staley is more banged up than Matthews and Heupel told FDP Matthews participated in the scrimmage while Staley did not.
However, Matthews continues to practice in a red jersey.
Those are Tennessee’s top three guys and they’re all in and out with injury at best. Now they’re less than three weeks from game one and Tennessee’s only option is to look for who will step up.
Radarious Jackson and Travis Smith might be the option.
That duo certainly has the right mentality and work ethic. They’re absolutely putting themselves in the right spot to be a trusted option this season.
The pair also had a strong Orange and White game where Jackson caught a dime in the end zone from George MacIntyre.
Together, they have been staying after practice and even before fall camp started Jackson told FDP he and Travis spent a ton a time with the Jugs machine, getting in 100-150 catches a visit.
Jackson said his strength is in the jump balls and being a physical receiver, which Tennessee could benefit from that toughness this season.
Now this is why you shouldn’t be pressing the panic button, yet.
It seems unlikely that the offense and production from the wide receiving core could drop off much more than it did a season ago.
In SEC play during the 2024 season this was Tennessee’s passing yardage:
194, 158, 169, 194, 292 (Kentucky), 212, 167, 257 (Vanderbilt). That equals 1,643 yards in conference play.
Miles Kitselman, Ethan Davis and Dylan Sampson were 4th, 8th, and 9th on the list in receiving yards, combining for 301 yards or about 18.3% of total yardage in conference play.
In 2023, the Vols recorded 1921 yards in conference play. McCallan Castles, Sampson, and Jaylen Wright combined for 342 yards or 17.8% of total yardage.
In 2022, the Vols registered 2015 yards in conference play. Princeton Fant, Jacob Warren, and Jabari Small were 5th, 7th, and 8th on the list and combined for 296 yards or 14.7%.
Ahead of the 2025 season, it’s shaping up for Tennessee to utilize those other skill positions to contribute more to the passing game. By the end of it maybe it’s closer to 20% of the passing game goes through the tight end and running backs.
So far in fall camp, Miles Kitselman, Jack Van Dorselaer and the tight ends have been quite accurate and productive with the reps they’ve received in the receiving drills.
