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Tennessee football got one of the biggest names in the college football transfer portal. Chaz Coleman transferred from Penn State to Tennessee, choosing the Volunteers over Ohio State, LSU, and South Carolina. Coleman was recently dismissed from the team after being medically disqualified.
On Monday, Josh Heupel spoke on Monday and finally broke his silence about the dismissal of Coleman, according to Pete Nakos of On3.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to help our guys inside of the building – Chaz being one of those guys,” Heupel said. “These young men deal with so many different things in today’s landscape of college football pressures that they feel, see, hear – whatever it might be. We’re here to help them. There was a good portion of while he was with us on our roster where he wasn’t necessarily integrated into the locker room because of some of the things that he was dealing with. You always want to do right by kids, and we certainly have done that. As a program, I probably feel like it was a bigger – I don’t know – story outside of the building than it necessarily was even inside of the building, and we’re ready to move forward.”
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Tennessee lost its top six pass-rushers from last year, but Tennessee knows that they can find replacements.
“We have some guys that have played a lot of football, Tyree and J-Norm,” He said. “We have young players, Mariyon Dye for example, that we feel really good about their development, so absolutely feel good about who we have there. Young players have got to continue to grow and be ready to play at an elite level, but I like the guys that we have inside the building.”
Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles is adept at using multiple combinations on the defensive line to get pressure on the quarterback. This includes the use of linebackers on the rush, something linebacker Jeremiah Telander also spoke of during SEC media days.
“We have so much talent up front and in the linebacker room as well, and I trust Coach Knowles and all of our (defensive) staff to be able to work a way that we’re going to get to the quarterback,” Telander said. “We’ve got talent all around, like I said, from some transfers coming in to even young guys, or even guys in the linebacker room. So we’re excited to see what we can do on those third-down situations.”
Tennessee opens its season on September 5 at home against Furman.
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