War Room: Camp over, game week prep, recruiting nuggets, hoops and more

We begin this edition of the War Room as we always do. The War Room is a collective effort of Tennessee notes and news gathered throughout the week by the Volquest staff that is located only on the General’s Quarters. And now, it’s on with the news.

Tennessee will have the weekend off, returning to the complex Sunday for meetings and to officially start game week prep for Virginia.

The Vols have used this week to get healthy, to get settled into the class routine and the daily schedule now that the fall semester has started, which is certainly different than camp. 

The biggest key to the “lighter” week of practice is getting healthy and Tennessee is pretty healthy. We know freshmen Tyree Weathersby and Desean Bishop are out for a while. Weathersby is out for the whole year after a hip procedure. Elijah Simmons, who was injured in the Vols last scrimmage, will miss several weeks and all eyes are on how quickly Cooper Mays can heal after he underwent a procedure three weeks ago. 

Otherwise the Vols are pretty healthy. Kamal Hidden is a little banged up but others who have missed time in camp like Wesley Walker and Tamarion McDonald have gotten back out “on the grass” as head coach Josh Heupel likes to say. 

Heupel likes his team. He’s liked their approach to work throughout fall camp. We will have much more from the head coach Monday morning. But competition for spots on this team has been a nice catalyst for this team especially at certain positions like running back and linebacker. 

The reality is that it’s time to play. Time to hit someone else and see exactly where you are especially on the offensive line. On Monday, Tennessee will issue a two deep depth chart that will feature a lot of -or-s on it but it will also feature some freshmen, especially on defense where the class of 2023 will make an impact and will see some early playing time as they continue to develop. Guys like Daevin Hobbs, Arion Carter and Caleb Herring have all had really good fall camps putting them in position to be a part of rotations. 

The staff loves the talent of the young guys in the secondary as well, but we will see just how much they really rotate there this season. However, there’s no doubt the defensive staff is excited about where the defense is at from a depth and talent standpoint. 

Up front on the offensive line, it feels like JJ Crawford will enter game week as the starter at right tackle, but expect multiple guys to play there. At center it’s Ollie Lane with Cooper Mays out and at left guard it’s a lot of -or-’s with Andrej Karic, Jackson Lampley and Addison Nichols. 

You are going to see freshman Ethan Davis play at tight end along with Jacob Warren and McCallan Castles. 

Of course Tennessee is playing in Nashville instead of at BYU. As Danny White said on Volcalls Wednesday night, being in Nashville is important. It makes the travel easier for fans and frankly if you look at the contract, Tennessee will make more money from the game. The cost of travel is obviously cheaper. The first $2 million in ticket sales goes to getting out of the BYU contract. Then Tennessee and Virginia get $1.5 million in ticket sales, finally Tennessee gets 80% of the rest of the ticket sales. So financially it’s a benefit for Tennessee to play in the game. 

On the facilities front, officials gave the media a tour of Neyland Stadium this week. The west club is finished and clean up is going on around the stadium to get ready for the home opener. Most of the construction will stop for the fall before resuming in a big way in the south end zone following the November 25 game against Vanderbilt. That will also include renovations to the skyboxes making the windows available to open.

In the meantime, the wi-fi work continues. White said there is hope that they will have the project done later this fall. The project was originally scheduled to be completed next off-season. 

“What they won’t see but they will experience at some point by the end of the year we will have wifi in the whole stadium or we should,” White said on VolCalls. “That will be a great upgrade in terms of connectivity. Some of that can start early in the season. We will continue to update fans on it. They are working on it every day. It’s a complicated thing to get wifi in a stadium of that size but we are confident we will have it done as we progress through the year.” 

Of course baseball construction will start next month and there are plans for the arena as you saw on Thursday as well. 

Some of you have asked about the entertainment district (area between stadium and arena). There’s hope that a bid for design will be sooner rather than later and because that project will not be done by the university it has a chance to go faster than a university project. One of the reasons the the new dorms will be constructed in the next 2-3 years is because a private company is building those and managing those facilities so some of the state’s red tape is eliminated. It will be the same for the entertainment district. 

Of course, there was the news on Thursday about the naming rights to Food City at the arena. In addition to logo/signage outside the arena there will be signage inside the arena as well. And that money will be put back into renovations for the arena which will include a club area on the riverside of the arena. 

As for naming rights to other facilities, there’s certainly a possibility for the baseball stadium. We know that selling naming rights to the party deck in the north end zone has been discussed. Club areas could be a possibility as well, but we have been told that naming rights to Neyland Stadium is not on anyone’s radar and is not a possibility at all. 

One quick contract note, Lady Vol coach Kellie Harper agreed back in the spring to a contract extension. Harper has been given a 1 year extension and a 100k raise taking her annual salary to 1.1 million. 

Recruiting

Tennessee closed on a big one Monday night when Jordan Ross picked the Vols. He has a tremendous relationship with Levorn Harbin aka ‘coach Chop’. Ross will undoubtedly get more and more attention this fall and Tennessee will have to keep working this one but it’s better to play from ahead than behind.

Virginia linebacker, Chris Cole and Tennessee continue to have great dialogue as he will come to town for the Austin Peay game the second weekend in September. He will commit that Sunday after his visit, so Tennessee will have the chance to leave a lasting impression heading into that announcement.

Tulsa defensive lineman Danny Okoye will officially visit Oklahoma next weekend and then Texas the third weekend in September before rounding out his month with an official visit to Tennessee for the South Carolina game. Obviously things could change when a prospect goes on another campus but we continue to feel like Tennessee is in a good spot in this one.

Statesboro wide receiver Kam Mikell is working to move up his official visit to Tennessee. It’s looking like right now that he will bump things up to the South Carolina weekend. He is also planning to visit Colorado and Texas A&M during September and October. He reiterated to us this week that playing wide receiver is most important to him.

Kameryn Fountain and Rodney Garner have been in contact again this week. Tennessee would love to get him to town in late September as well unofficially.

Mississippi running back Daniel Hill chose not to commit this past week and is saying he will take some visits during the football season with Tennessee being one of them. South Carolina has felt like they were in a good spot while Alabama has always been a team of heavy interest for Hill.

Tennessee is turning the heat up on Jordan Seaton but that one is likely to have many twists and turns this fall. He is planning on taking several official visits which means this thing is just getting started. 

In checking more on Nasir Smith this week, his recruitment may be on the rise after his first game of the season last Saturday. Talking to sources deep inside the Peach State, there continues to be some surprise that he hasn’t blown up more. Vanderbilt is circling and could offer soon and several others have expressed more serious interest since Saturday. Tennessee still sits in a solid spot here in our estimation. 

Tennessee has cast a wide net along the offensive line in the 2025 class to start out. Josh Petty, Jacobe Ward, and Juan Gaston are among several early names they have continued to have positive dialogue with the Vols since August 1st. These names along with several others, are expected to make their way through campus at some point this Fall for a Gameday experience.

Hoops

Tennessee will host its first official visitor of the fall this weekend with 2024 wing Chase McCarty in town. McCarty has already taken official visits to Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Georgia Tech, and Kansas. Along with Tennessee, he has upcoming official visits set with Houston (9/1).

McCarty is originally from Huntsville, Ala. and is attending IMG Academy for his senior season. 

At the moment McCarty doesn’t have any official visits set beyond that trip to Houston in the first week of September. He hasn’t publicly named any favorites, but with Tennessee getting the first visit of the fall semester it feels like he Vols are in the thick of this one but McCarty has played his cards pretty close to the vest as far as talking favorites. 

McCarty is a versatile wing who is an efficient player on both ends of the floor. He’s got a long frame that allows him to be a menace on defense and he’s a solid catch and shoot guy at this stage of his career. 

Tennessee will be keeping an eye on four-star point guard Bishop Boswell, out of Charlotte, who will be making his official visit to Wake Forest this weekend. The Demon Deacons were among the first programs to offer Boswell and it’s a safe bet they’ll be pushing hard to lock down a commitment this weekend. 

The Vols are trying to make up some ground here after just offering in July. If he makes it through this weekend without committing that is obviously a good sign for the Vols. Tennessee might have been a little late with the offer, but they have gone in on Boswell in the last month, but will that be enough?

Boswell is scheduled to make his official visit to Tennessee next weekend.

The Vols don’t have a ton of visitors lined up but there will be steady stream of prospects from across the next two classes drifting through campus during September. 

Pharaoh Cooper, a 2024 power forward from Las Vegas, will visit next weekend, Sept. 23. He’s taken one official visit to Houston and in addition to Tennessee has trips scheduled to LSU, San Diego St. and Iowa. 

The Vols will have two highly regarded underclassmen point guards on campus for official visits during September. 

2025 prospect Jeremiah Fears from Joliet, Ill., ranked No. 35 overall in that class, will make an official visit on Sept. 23

Aaron Rowe, rated the No. 17 overall player in the 2025 class, will visit on Sept. 29 the last weekend of the month.  Rowe attends Link Academy in Missouri the same program that Tennessee freshmen Cam Carr and Cade Phillips attended last year. 

As for the current team preseason workouts are about to begin in earnest now that classes are back in session.

All eyes will be on Zakai Zeigler as he works to battle back from a torn ACL suffered at the end of last year’s regular season. All reports we’ve heard suggest that Zeigler is ahead of schedule in his rehab. Now, exactly what ‘ahead of schedule’ means as far as a return date is unclear and no one is talking about a specific time 

Obviously, a dream scenario would be for Zeigler to be close to or at full speed in November. We’ll see if that turns out to be the case but regardless, the news surrounding his rehab seems all positive at the moment. 

Freshman Cade Phillips, who has been pretty much shutdown all summer because of a shoulder injury, is expected to be fully cleared to join team activities next week. 

Fellow freshman Cam Carr didn’t arrive until July and didn’t play on the Italy trip due to the fact that he was still getting acclimated. Many felt that late start meant that Carr was headed for a redshirt. That may still turn out to be the case, but from what we’re hearing right now it certainly isn’t written in stone. He’s really turned some heads on the staff with his athleticism and feel or the game. Whether he has a role this year or not—Tennessee is really deep on the wings—the feeling around the program is that the Vols might have found a diamond in the rough with Carr. 

Sticking with the freshmen class, we’ve noted for a few weeks now that the staff has really liked what they’ve seen from JP Estrella over the last half o the summer. He obviously has some developing to do, but someone this week described Chris Ledlum’s departure earlier this summer as ‘a blessing in disguise’ because it’s opened up an opportunity for Estrella and he seems to be doing his best to take advantage of it.

The post War Room: Camp over, game week prep, recruiting nuggets, hoops and more appeared first on On3.