The Vols have had a small handful of players elect to transfer elsewhere this offseason. And now another player has decided to play at another school in the future, and this school is a future Vol opponent.
Defensive lineman Mykelle McDaniel announced via Twitter this weekend that he intends to transfer to UAB to continue his collegiate football career.
— 1% (@MykelleMcDaniel) July 22, 2017
McDaniel left Tennessee after the spring semester and never registered a tackle for the Vols in 2016. McDaniel didn’t commit to a school on National Signing Day because of academic concerns but joined Tennessee as a late addition to their 2016 class. He didn’t appear in any games for the Vols last season, and his lone year at Tennessee ended with him being suspended from the team during preparation for the Music City Bowl.
McDaniel returned to the Vols after the bowl game but only participated in a handful of spring practices before electing to leave the program.
UAB will be restarting its football program in the 2017 season after a two-year hiatus. The Vols are scheduled to play the Blazers in November of 2019, and assuming McDaniel is still on the roster at that time, he will be a redshirt junior for UAB.
The Vols and Blazers were originally supposed to play in Nissan Stadium in Nashville to open the 2015 season. But UAB ended up shutting down their football program before then, and Tennessee quickly had to add Bowling Green to the schedule instead.
Now Tennessee and UAB have a future date set, and the Blazers will possibly have a former Vol on the roster at that time.
McDaniel recorded 100 tackles and 13 sacks in his senior year of high school and was a three-star recruit according to 247Sports.
