Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ spring roster for 2022

2. Seniors from 2021 back in 2022

Dating back to January, we had been tracking seniors who had a year of eligibility left and whether or not they decided to leave for the NFL. Cade Mays and Alontae Taylor left for the pros. Jerome Carvin, Hendon Hooker, Solon Page III, Princeton Fant and Trevon Flowers all publicly revealed their decisions to come back. You can read about all of this here.

Ja’Quain Blakely, Matthew Butler, Kenneth George Jr., Theo Jackson, Velus Jones Jr., JaVonta Payton and Caleb Tremblay were all out of eligibility. However, there were still tons of seniors who hadn’t publicly announced yet, so we had no idea what they would do.

Well, the roster revealed that, and it’s mostly good news for the Vols. Key starters are back in punter Paxton Brooks and place kicker Chase McGrath. There were questions on the defensive line, and LaTrell Bumphus has decided to return up front. Juwan Mitchell is back at linebacker after a season-ending injury. Cheyenne Labruzza is back in the secondary.

Brooks, Mcgrath and Bumphus are all expected to be major contributors, and Mitchell is expected to compete. Labruzza also has potential too, particularly at nickel, given his experience. As a result, Tennessee football got lots of key players back. However, this also revealed something else, which leads to our final takeaway.