Josh Heupel inherited a Tennessee program hit hard by departures through the transfer portal and amid an NCAA investigation that would lead to scholarship reductions, but it hasn’t stopped the head coach and his staff from leading the Vols to 27 wins over the past three seasons. Its numbers now built back up, Tennessee goes into a new era of college football in 2024 with an expanded SEC and 12-team College Football Playoff with what Heupel believes is the deepest roster of his tenure on Rocky Top. Newcomers account for more than a third of the Vols’ scholarship chart, though, and with roster management and player turnover such a prevalent part of the sport, 247Sports is analyzing how much each program’s roster has changed this offseason.
Coming off a breakthrough 11-win season, Tennessee had one of the more unique rosters in the country last season with more than 30 seniors and more than 30 freshmen. But the balance looks different going into this season, and for the first time under Heupel the Vols won’t have an oversized senior class, and seven of those 15 scholarship seniors are transfers who joined the program either this offseason or during the previous two. On the other hand, freshmen and sophomores comprise more than 64% of the roster – there are 53 of them, mostly from the 2023 and 2024 recruiting classes that included 27 blue-chip prospects.
Roughly 35% of Tennessee’s 2024 roster is new, a slight decrease from a year ago.
“We’re just in a different spot,” Heupel said in April. “I think in our first spring, we were at 54, 55 (scholarship) guys. We ended up (with) like 64 that were with us in the fall. Had to add pieces, no depth on our roster.
“Now you’re in the phases of three recruiting classes, you’re starting to add the body types, the skill sets and you’re adding continued depth to our roster. For us, that’s still the next phase for our program, is being deep enough as things happen through the course of the season (to) make sure you’ve got championship players ready to go compete every Saturday.”
GoVols247 breaks down all of Tennessee’s offseason roster movement – all the players the Vols have added through their recruiting and transfer classes and those they lost to the portal, the NFL and graduation.
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