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Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel said the Vols are “ready to move forward” following Chaz Coleman‘s medical disqualification and exit from the program in June.
“You always want to do right by kids and we certainly have done that,” Heupel said on a Zoom with local media Monday. “As a program, I probably feel like it was a bigger story outside of the building than it necessarily was even inside of the building. We’re ready to move forward.”
Coleman was medically disqualified in June, at which point he was no longer part of the Tennessee program. Heupel’s comments Monday were his first since Coleman’s exit.
The 6-foot-4, 246-pound edge rusher was the top transfer in Tennessee’s transfer portal class. Coleman had eight tackles, three tackles for loss, two fumble recoveries and a sack in his freshman season at Penn State.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to help our guys inside of the building,” Heupel said. “Chaz, being one of those guys. 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.”
Coleman transferred to Tennessee from Penn State as a highly sought after edge rusher. He came with new Vols defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, but never settled into the program.
Coleman missed the back half of spring practices in his first semester at UT.
Coleman was around some of his teammates doing community service work in late April and May. He also spent time with defensive line coach Rodney Garner after spring practice. But he went home following the spring semester, returned late, and decided not to participant in workouts.
Coleman was four days late in returning to Knoxville with the rest of his teammates to begin summer workouts. Coleman returned to town on May 29 and met with some in the football program. Coleman didn’t rejoin his teammates as a participant in Derek Owings’ offseason program.
At SEC Spring Meetings, Heupel offered his support for Coleman who has been dealing with personal issues. Coleman didn’t finish spring practice or spring semester workouts .
“Chaz has been dealing with some things and we’re here to support him,” Heupel said in Destin. “We’ll continue to go through that process.”
Ultimately, Coleman exited the program and won’t play for the Vols.
