Tennessee football DL enters transfer portal before Arkansas game
Defensive lineman Savion Williams may leave the Tennessee football Volunteers.
Less than two hours before Tennessee football was set to face off with the Arkansas Razorbacks, a member of the Vols revealed some big news. With the announcement, the depth on a crucial part of the team got a bit more thin as well.
Senior Savion Williams announced that he would be entering the transfer portal. A junior college transfer who joined the team in 2019 out of Lackawanna College in Pennsylvania, Williams has spent most of his time as a reserve defensive lineman.
Standing at 6’4″ 290 pounds, Williams is initially from Washington, D.C. and was a four-star in Tennessee football’s 2019 class. However, he only played in seven games that year and made his debut against the Kentucky Wildcats in 2020. He revealed his decision on Twitter.
Williams had been looking for his first tackle on the season after coming away with seven last year. However, he hasn’t been able to see the same level of production that Aubrey Solomon, a transfer from the Michigan Wolverines, and Darel Middleton, another junior college transfer, saw on the defensive line after joining the program in 2019.
Add in Kurrott Garland, Greg Emerson, Omari Thomas and edge rushers up front like Matthew Butler, LaTrell Bumphus, Ja’Quain Blakely, John Mincey, Tyler Baron and Morven Joseph, and it was hard to see there being any more room for Williams to make an impact. Even the preseason dismissal of Emmit Gooden wasn’t going to open up too many opportunities.
As a result, Williams probably made the right decision to transfer. Given the NCAA’s redshirt rules and its pandemic-adjusted rules for this season in which players can keep their eligibility, he’ll definitely have a full season left to be able to play and maybe even two at wherever he lands, assuming he does indeed transfer.
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Without him, Tennessee football loses a bit of depth up front, and that could be problematic given the transition they already are undergoing with the firing of defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh midseason. Overall, though, they should be fine.