Tennessee football’s five offseason priorities for 2022

While March Madness continues for college basketball, the offseason is in full swing for Tennessee football. Josh Heupel may not be done in the transfer portal, but he’s already picked up a few transfers, he locked in his recruiting class over a month ago, and the Vols are about to begin spring practice for their 2022 season.

At this point, all the focus is on what UT needs to work on to build off of its 7-6 campaign in 2021 that easily could have been 10-3 if a couple of things had gone differently. That focus isn’t jus about personnel upgrades. It’s about where to work on getting better.

There were glaring weaknesses on the Vols last year that had nothing to do with the system Heupel runs. That and addressing needs are the two key factors to making the most out of the next few months. Let’s look at what falls under that umbrella. These are the five offseason priorities for Tennessee football.

5. Develop depth at tackle

Cade Mays leaving is an obvious reason for this. However, the Vols weren’t deep at tackle to begin with. They had to move Mays to the outside last year because they were so thin there, and they then had to move Darnell Wright over to left tackle. Being thin at a position and losing a player there only makes it worse.

Dayne Davis and Jeremiah Crawford are there to help Wright, but a three-man rotation is an absolute necessity, and without true competition at the position, Heupel only has three options there. As a result, he’s got to spend time finding other guys.

The good news for him is that the Vols loaded up on the offensive line, and almost all of those players will be on board for spring practice. As a result, this is something that shouldn’t be hard for Tennessee football to do. However, it’s still necessary that they do it, so we had to make sure it ends up on this list.