At the beginning of the 2021 season, all the changes that Tennessee football underwent the previous offseason made it apparent the Vols would need lots of breakout stars if they were going to have any sort of success. We had a story on players who should break out and then another one on dark horse players who could break out.
All of these players had to be returning starters. Plenty of guys from both lists lived up to or exceeded expectations, helping Rocky Top to a 7-6 record. In this post, which will analyze players who did have breakout years, the rankings will be based on how much their production increased.
By its very nature, this post has to take into account what players did for UT in 2020 in addition to their production in 2021. After all, what we’re really tracking here is improvement. Let’s go ahead and break down who makes this list. These are the 10 biggest breakout players from Tennessee football’s first year under Josh Heupel.
6’2″ 223 pounds
It was obvious the Vols would have issues at linebacker this year given the transfers of Henry To’o To’o, Quavaris Crouch and even J.J. Peterson. Add in the season-ending injury to Texas Longhorns transfer Juwan Mitchell early on, and they had to go deep into their roster to find production. That mostly included turning to veterans within the program.
Solon Page III had been with the Vols since 2017 but didn’t play at all his first two years. He then had a total of eight tackles, five of which were solo, along with half a tackle for a loss over the next two years. This past year, though, Page moved into a utility backup linebacker.
With that move, Page had a breakout campaign. He finished the season with a pick-six, two pass deflections, two and a half tackles for a loss and 38 tackles, 13 of which were solo. Page was more of a coverage linebacker for Tennessee football, and his PFF score of 50.6 was really low, but he took a huge leap, and since he’s coming back next year, things could get even better.