At least until the next window opens, the Tennessee Volunteers football team will have eight incoming transfers, with 12 outgoing. But with every team, the hope is that the incoming will have more of an impact than the outgoing.
The Volunteers are coming off another successful year under fourth-year head coach Josh Heupel. The Vols went 4-4 in the SEC and 9-4 overall last season with their second consecutive bowl win, finishing ranked 21st in the final College Football Playoff rankings. Some, however, considered it a mild setback year after Tennessee was able to go 11-2 and 6-2 in conference play in 2022, where at one point they were ranked No. 1 in the CFP rankings.
That team was led by one of the best offenses in the country with quarterback Hendon Hooker and wide receivers Jalin Hyatt and Cedric Tillman. But those guys weren’t on the Volunteers football roster in 2023, which most assuredly accounted for the minor dropoff.
Luckily for Tennessee, they seemed to have found their quarterback of the future in former five-star Nico Iamaleava. But who will be his wide receivers next season? Bru McCoy has announced he will be coming back next season, along with Squirrel White and Class of 2024 four-star commits Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley.
Heupel still looked into the portal for some veteran talent.
Heupel, Iamaleava, and the Vols hope that they have found a necessary offensive weapon in transfer portal addition Chris Brazzell II from Tulane.
Chris Brazzell II comes from what has been a successful Tulane football program over the last two years, where the Green Wave went 23-5 under Willie Fritz. But once Fritz left for Houston, so did some important players from that Tulane roster, like Brazzell.
Brazzell comes to Knoxville as the No. 70 overall transfer portal player and the No. 15 overall wide receiver, per 247sports. In 13 games as a redshirt freshman, Brazzell had 44 receptions for 711 yards, averaging 16.2 yards per catch, and five touchdowns.
Chris Brazzell II will be much needed help for Nico Iamaleava
It’s still too early to tell what Iamaleava will be as the Vols starting quarterback but he’s definitely going to need some help around him in his first full season as a starter. What hurt last year’s starter, Joe Milton III, was his lack of receiver help. There was never a deep threat for Milton like there was for Hooker with Hyatt or even Tillman during the previous season. It also didn’t help that Bru McCoy, the transfer from USC, got hurt midseason, further depleting what production there was from the wide receiver room.
At 6-foot-5, 195, Brazzell should be a much-welcomed addition to the Tennessee football roster, who can help catch the deep ball. That’s what makes Brazzell the sneakiest transfer portal addition for the Tennessee football team.
