This offseason has been in many ways a massive disappointment for the Tennessee Volunteers coming off of a season where the team made it to the College Football Playoff. Instead of building on what they built last season, the Volunteers will likely take a step back as quarterback Nico Iamaleava transferred to UCLA in a public dispute with the program. Ahead of the Summer, the biggest storyline was whether or not star safety Boo Carter would play for the team or move elsewhere.
Once the Boo Carter questions were answered, the Volunteers finally hit the field for fall camp, which for Josh Heupel was likely thrilling as the team could finally focus on football. In a year where it seems as if issues keep piling up, a new issue is emerging in Knoxville.
As the Volunteers look to find their next quarterback as Joey Aguilar, Jake Merklinger, and George MacIntyre battle for the job, they're doing so with less than ideal weapons. As injuries have hit the roster, Tennessee only has 5 healthy wide receivers at camp with only 1 receiver on the field with college experience.
Mike Matthews is at practice but not going through WR drills. WR Chris Brazzell still limited due to injury.
— Adam Sparks (@AdamSparks) August 3, 2025
You can literally count Tennessee’s healthy scholarship wide receivers (5) on one hand.
And 4 of those 5 have never played a college snap.
While the injuries to Mike Matthews and Chris Brazzell don't to be serious, the situation only adds more concerns to the roster. Tennessee is already going to need to find a quarterback on the fly as they lost theirs following Spring Camp. Given that you'd like to see each player in the first team offense, sending each quarterback out with an inexperienced group isn't the best situation.
As every day passes with Matthews and Brazzell on the sideline, Tennessee's starting quarterback isn't building chemistry with their biggest weapons. The most likely outcome is that UCLA transfer Joey Aguilar wins the job and his first time with Tennessee is this summer, meaning he isn't going to have much chemistry with his stars this fall.
This week begins a new week of camp for Tennessee, and it'll be important that they get their stars back on the field; otherwise, the season opener against Syracuse only gets tougher.
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