Tennessee wasn’t shy about using tight end Princeton Fant in a number of different offensive ways during the 2022 football season. The redshirt senior tight end did a little bit of everything for Tennessee and provided a few clutch moments for the Vols throughout the season.
Fant ended his final season on Rocky Top with five rushing touchdowns on six attempts, a 66-yard passing touchdown, and 241 yards receiving with a total of three touchdowns to go along with it. While the numbers themselves are impressive and interesting to look at, the moral of the story is that Fant was extremely versatile at 6-foot-2, 245 pounds last season.
With Fant departing Tennessee with hopes of a future in the NFL during the offseason, the Vols brought in experienced fifth-year tight end McCallan Castles from the transfer portal.
Tennessee tight end Jacob Warren spoke about Castles on Tuesday and mentioned some of the Princeton Fant-type qualities that the 6-foot-5, 252-pound transfer brings to the table.
“It’s very similar,” Warren said comparing the duo of him and McCallan Castles to himself and Princeton Fant last season. “I think McCallan does a lot of things that Princeton did last year just in how athletic he is, how strong he is, his speed and the things he’s able to do on the perimeter are really cool.”
Castles spent the previous three seasons at UC Davis and caught a total of 928 yards and nine touchdowns on 69 receptions across three years.
“You’ll see that this year with him getting really involved in the pass game and doing some really cool things with him in the backfield,” Warren continued on to say about Castles. “He’s just a guy that truly comes to work every single day. McCallan is here now, and he’s a guy that I can really depend on, trust and know that he’ll have my back when we’re out there together.”
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While Warren didn’t expand further on the “cool” things that Castles is doing in the backfield, one can assume that head coach Josh Heupel and offensive coordinator Joey Halzle could have some tricks up their sleeve for the season ahead. Depending on his comfort in running the ball, Castles might even be used in a similar goal-line package that Fant found his rushing touchdowns in last season. In the end, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Halzle explained last week that Castles came from a system at UC Davis that “was not going fast at all.” Due to that change, Tennessee had to get Castles up to speed, literally, with their style of offense.
“Now that he’s dialed in on everything, that’s a big and strong dude that will come off the ball and hit you,” Halzle said about Castles last week. “It’s fun to watch him, he’ll strike people like an old-school fullback, but then he can run like a slot and be a matchup issue for safeties.”
According to Halzle, McCallan Castles can strike like a fullback. But can he run like one a la Princeton Fant on the goal line? We’ll find out soon enough.
No. 12 Tennessee and tight end McCallan Castles will take on Virginia this Saturday for the season opener in Nashville’s Nissan Stadium at 11:00 a.m. CT.
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Kenny Cheney or Morgan Wallen would be good