It’s been just over two weeks since Tennessee’s regular-season finale against Vanderbilt, just over a week since the end of conference championship weekend, and nearly a full week of the transfer portal being open to all college football student-athletes.
And there hasn’t been a shortage of storylines over that time.
The college football playoff committee made one of the sport’s most controversial decisions by selecting Alabama and Texas, two one-loss conference champions, over an undefeated and ACC champion Florida State. People haven’t stopped talking about that decision and likely won’t for the next month.
The transfer portal is doing its best Ghostbusters impression, lassoing in more than 3,000 student-athletes from around the country like Peter Venkman with his Proton Pack. Several notable names have entered the portal including Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel, Mississippi State quarterback Will Rogers, Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord, and Texas A&M defensive lineman Walter Nolen.
Florida and South Carolina are two of the teams that have seen players enter the portal in droves from the conference. Florida running back Trevor Etienne and South Carolina wide receiver Antwane Wells and running back Mario Anderson are a few of the notable names to enter the portal from the SEC.
Tennessee, though, hasn’t had too many events happen over the previous week. But there has certainly been movement that ramped up over the span of the week.
Tennessee redshirt senior cornerback Warren Burrell was the first Vol player to have his portal intentions revealed on November 30. When the portal officially opened on December 4, Tennessee had four players enter on that day: cornerback Brandon Turnage, safety Jack Luttrell, offensive lineman Addison Nichols, and offensive lineman Mo Clipper Jr.
The Vols ended that day with some good news, though. Former Miami transfer and one-year Tennessee starting left tackle John Campbell Jr. announced that he would be returning to Knoxville for another year in 2024. Campbell’s return to the Tennessee offensive line allows some much-needed stability as the Vols break in quarterback Nico Iamaleava.
More from RTI: Tennessee Football Outgoing Transfer Portal Tracker
Connor Meadows, a redshirt freshman reserve lineman, officially entered the portal on Thursday.
Arguably Tennessee’s two biggest outgoing portal players both came on Friday. 247 Sports reported that both veteran defensive lineman Tyler Baron and veteran defensive back Doneiko Slaughter intend to enter the transfer portal. Sitting here on Sunday afternoon, Baron’s name is in 247’s transfer database while Slaughter’s name is not.
This is the second time that Baron has entered the portal, previously returning to Tennessee after a one-day stint in the portal in January 2022.
On the recruiting side of things, Tennessee class of 2024 commit Jonathan Echols flipped his commitment from Tennessee to South Florida, the home of former Tennessee offensive coordinator Alex Golesh.
Tennessee was able to close out a less-than-ideal news day on Friday with a really positive note for the program.
Tennessee veteran linebacker Keenan Pili announced that he will be returning to the team for the 2024 season after missing all but one game during the 2023 season with an injury. Keenan Pili’s 2024 season will be his seventh college football season, granted to him thanks to a medical redshirt waiver due to the aforementioned season-ending injury with Tennessee this season.
The other positive news coming out of the week is that no Tennessee player has announced a bowl game opt-out as of the time of this publication. Those players will likely announce their decisions closer to the bowl game.
It’s been a big week on Rocky Top, so stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for all of your up-to-date information from Tennessee in the fast-paced world of college football.
Check out Rocky Top Insider’s U.T. outgoing transfer portal tracker here.
UPDATE: Former Tennessee cornerback Warren Burrell has announced that he will be transferring to Georgia Tech.
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