Tennessee football’s mass exodus at receiver continued on Friday afternoon when two-year starting slot receiver Squirrel White entered the transfer portal.
White was the fifth Tennessee receiver to enter the portal this offseason joining Chas Nimrod, Kaleb Webb, Nathan Leacock and Nate Spillman. Combine those five losses with Bru McCoy and Dont’e Thornton running out of eligibility and Tennessee is poised to return just three scholarship receivers in 2025.
Chris Brazzell is back after a disappointing first season in Knoxville following his transfer from Tulane while freshmen Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley will also return.
Tennessee signed three prep receivers in its 2025 recruiting class which gives them six scholarship receivers on the roster before they add players in the transfer portal.
The loss in numbers is dramatic but the loss in production is not. White played a lot of snaps and had a great 2023 season, but in 2024 those five receivers combined for 563 yards and two touchdowns.
And that is the damning part for Josh Heupel and his staff. Not that they lost five receivers to the transfer portal, but that in two full recruiting classes they didn’t sign one receiver that losing was a big deal. In fact, they signed just one receiver that was a starting caliber player in the SEC, and, again, he was an average starter.
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When you combine that with Tennessee’s offensive line prep recruiting and Heupel and his staff are missing on far more evaluations then they’re hitting on on the offensive side of the ball.
It’s easy to compare the losses to Tennessee’s defensive backfield a season ago. Tennessee let seven defensive backs walk to the portal including five cornerbacks and largely gambled that they’d be better off without them.
It proved to be an effective gamble. Second year corner Rickey Gibson stepped up as did veteran safety Will Brooks. Tennessee struck gold in the portal by landing Jermod McCoy and found two more capable contributors there in Jalen McMurray and Jakobe Thomas.
That’s the path forward for Tennessee. They need talented young receivers to step up like Gibson did and they need Brazzell to become a solid contributor like Brooks did. But they also have to find some big time players in the portal.
To this point, Tennessee has not been overly active recruiting receivers in the transfer portal. That is a bit worrisome given the dramatic need not just for bodies but for high level contributors. But for now, Heupel and his staff deserve the benefit of the doubt until we see which receivers they end up signing out of the portal.
But as Tennessee moves into a critical offseason for its offense, getting the receiver spot right has to be one of its top priorities. They’ll attempt to do it with a lot of new faces.
