'25 Portal Thread

[TrippieRedd]

A couple of what? Recruits or coaching changes? Sorry, I didn’t see the full quote you’re referring to unless I missed something.

AP was talking about WRs. I find it interesting he didn’t mention names, usually he does if they are just targets.

Just weird he’s keeping it under wraps unless those WRs he’s referring to are already secretly committed

 

[85SugarVol]

It has one edge. The negative one. There is no good edge to those idiots.

Yea disagree there. You just hate it, right now.

And VolTwitter is an all encompassing umbrella term to describe the online Vol e-community at large. You’re part of “VolTwitter”.

 

[Fun coupon VOL]

Again, there's only so many reps to go around. Barring injury or lack of position depth, no staff in the country is going to play a true frosh more than a productive upperclassman. MM may have wanted to have more reps, but he also wasn't riding the pine.

Something has to break, as the coaches are being put in an impossible position with the portal: run off productive, experienced upperclassmen or run off talented, young players.

In what world did we have productive upper classmen? No wide receiver that played the snaps squirrel, Thornton, and McCoy this year should be considered productive based on their stats.

They just weren’t good and none were that explosive

 

[InVOLuntary]

Couple of nuggets from the MNC

On portal WRs



On staff changes


% chance we take a rb in portal


On MM



On portal


-AP

Seems like Nico could put that fire out quickly.

 

[Checker_the_Shire]

AP was talking about WRs. I find it interesting he didn’t mention names, usually he does if they are just targets.

Just weird he’s keeping it under wraps unless those sets he’s referring to are already secretly committed

I don’t know if it was you or another poster who mentioned this, but I’m in agreement. If we’re going this hard, and now perhaps this secretly, after some WRs, I think Matthews is gone.

 

[SCvol28]

If you listen to Swain Event, may want to turn it on. He’s going in depth on the needs of change, development, and recruiting. Pretty informative details he’s sharing.

 

[Carp]

I don’t know if it was you or another poster who mentioned this, but I’m in agreement. If we’re going this hard, and now perhaps this secretly, after some WRs, I think Matthews is gone.

It's also possible that we're simply playing things more closely to the chest since we lost out on that Northwestern OT after he got predicted to us. From what I read on the subject, we thought we had him in the bag before that prediction was released and other teams got desperate and threw huge NIL offers at him before he even set foot on their campus.

If we get the WR we want on campus (Branch), I imagine we'll put the full court press on him and get him to commit before he leaves and prevent other programs from putting dollar signs in front of him to get him to visit.

 

[Checker_the_Shire]

If you listen to Swain Event, may want to turn it on. He’s going in depth on the needs of change, development, and recruiting. Pretty informative details he’s sharing.

Hold up, didn’t someone in here post a screenshot of a tweet from Swain about the Nico visits that were absolutely false but he was spreading them as truth?

 

[orangemadam]

Is there still any buzz on Tate going to portal or was this just childish jibberish?

 

[rockytop25]

If you listen to Swain Event, may want to turn it on. He’s going in depth on the needs of change, development, and recruiting. Pretty informative details he’s sharing.

Summary?

 

[KB5252]

AP was talking about WRs. I find it interesting he didn’t mention names, usually he does if they are just targets.

Just weird he’s keeping it under wraps unless those WRs he’s referring to are already secretly committed

Or on rosters waiting to portal when their season is done possibly.

 

[KB5252]

Any news or reports of interest to any tackles in the portal? I feel like at worst we need another depth piece/insurance policy.

 

[knoxvol52]

VN is social media.

Not this guy, so I guess I'm not part of the clique... I'm out...

 

[Carp]

Or on rosters waiting to portal when the season is done possibly.

This is true. If we are using back channels to talk to players on teams currently waiting to play their bowl games, then it makes sense why no one is releasing the names.

 

[Smokey'sHandler]

Perhaps. But unfortunately I trust Billy as a coach way more than I ever trusted Pruitt. I never bought into the Pruitt hype. Didn’t trust the hire from the beginning.

Billy is currently 19-19…. At Florida lol

Our fanbase is wild. Folks are scared about a .500 Sun Belt coach because he is bringing some players in but are unsure about out our current roster and staff that just went 10-3 and has 30 wins in the same timespan as Sun Belt Billy’s 19.

 

[NoogaVol96]

AP was talking about WRs. I find it interesting he didn’t mention names, usually he does if they are just targets.

Just weird he’s keeping it under wraps unless those WRs he’s referring to are already secretly committed

Pair that with @Ericvol2096 post the other day about teams still playing and….

 

[Checker_the_Shire]

Billy is currently 19-19…. At Florida lol

Our fanbase is wild. Folks are scared about a .500 Sun Belt coach because he is bringing some players in but are unsure about out our current roster and staff that just went 10-3 and has 30 wins in the same timespan as Sun Belt Billy’s 19.

I never said I was unsure or scared. Nor did I ever compare Billy to CJH in terms of my worries. I am, however, confident he is a much better coach that Pruitt. At the same time, based on history of the series and how their season ended, I am also confident that we should be worried about them next year and not think we’ve turned the tide. Until we get the monkey off our back (ie beat them in the Swamp) I will always be worried about Florida.

 

[Orange_Crush]

Not this guy, so I guess I'm not part of the clique... I'm out...

I've been thinking along those lines a lot lately.

There seems to be much better things to do with one's time and sanity than spending time online watching supposed grown-ups invent things to freak out about, and then vomiting it all up for the world to see.

Yah. I'm talking about VN.

 

[85SugarVol]

The stubbornness of the offensive staff to play young players is hurting us. It’s just how it is in the new NCAAF. The defense doesn’t suffer from that except for a bit in the backfield and isn’t suffering the same transfer woes.

Yep. And now a few idiots online have given them a late Christmas gift cover story.

No, no, no… It wasn’t our total misuse and mismanagement of Mike Matthews that led to his unhappiness with Tennessee - it was totally the Richard G West twitter account…

 

[SCvol28]

Summary?

* Spyre isn’t the issue, it’s our recruiting/development of those recruits. He seems to be adamant change needs to happen with our offensive staff.
* Defensive staff have kept guys who could make more $ elsewhere but they stay because they’re being developed.
* CJH development as a coach will be his willingness to adapt; includes staffing changes, offensive philosophy adjustments, etc.
* Don’t forget how far we’ve came the last 4 years…but still work to be done to reach the level we want.

 

[Orange_Crush]

Billy is currently 19-19…. At Florida lol

Our fanbase is wild. Folks are scared about a .500 Sun Belt coach because he is bringing some players in but are unsure about out our current roster and staff that just went 10-3 and has 30 wins in the same timespan as Sun Belt Billy’s 19.

@Freak

Please sticky this.

 

[Jimmy Football]

I've been thinking along those lines a lot lately.

There seems to be much better things to do with one's time and sanity than spending time online inventing things to freak out about, and then vomiting it all up for the world to see.

Yah. I'm talking about VN.

Nope. I’ve checked around and can confidently say there’s no better way to spend your time than with the morans on good ol’ VolNation.com.

 

[RiseToTheTop]

The stubbornness of the offensive staff to play young players is hurting us. It’s just how it is in the new NCAAF. The defense doesn’t suffer from that except for a bit in the backfield and isn’t suffering the same transfer woes.

Whenever you got a Chas Nimrod you just have to give him snaps

Youre spot on

 

[PTSDVOL]

Hold up, didn’t someone in here post a screenshot of a tweet from Swain about the Nico visits that were absolutely false but he was spreading them as truth?

No idk who tf you are talking about but it wasn't Jayson Swain.

 

[HoleInTheRoof]

I don't get the same "he gone" (shoutout to BGS) vibes some of yall get after reading the MM updates. As corny as it is, I'd assume by simply since he hid then restored all his Vols stuff on social media that he's sticking around. Not to mention he hasn't actually entered yet.

And I think is pursuing multiple receivers is not directly related to Matthews.

Sure we're bringing in four freshman, but you obviously don't want to rely on freshman anywhere during the window we have with Nico. You have to put your best foot forward.

I don't have a look at snap counts total each receiver played, but on average for the past three years (I didn't look at 2021 because that roster was like 50 players), we're averaging about 6 receivers getting a fair amount of playing time.

Currently going into 2025 we have three returning receivers.

Mike Matthews (calling that he stays)
Chris Brazell
Braylon Staley

Again, I understand we're bringing in three freshman but I sincerely doubt Nico, his dad, the coaching staff etc are heading into this year wanting to rely on freshman. Especially considering two of them (Jackson and Dodson) have great upside but aren't quite ready to contribute.

I'm not going to count Boo Carter because sure, he's going to get some PT on offense but I don't think it'll be a Travis Hunter role. I could see him getting packages, like jet sweeps or some snaps in the slot or backfield. But I definitely expect the lions share of his plays will be defense. So lets assume he gets 5-10 snaps per game. But even if its more and you want to count him, thats still only 4 guys.

So counting MM staying, we're still needing "a couple of guys" from the portal.

VQ not listing names is likely (a) they don't know - just looking at the numbers and coming to the same conclusion that we need bodies) or (b) can't report names because the players aren't in the portal yet.

Its early on Branch as he hasn't even indicated he'd visit, yet they reported his name. So we may be looking at guys who have yet to play a bowl or who's season hasn't ended yet.

TLR version..... relax MM is staying.