Tennessee football: Top 15 dark-horse Vols for 2022

Tennessee linebacker Kwauze Garland (15) warms up before an SEC football game between Tennessee and Kentucky at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky. on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021.

Kns Tennessee Kentucky Football

6’1″ 225 pounds

During Josh Heupel’s first spring practice, when Tennessee football was desperately looking for help at linebacker, Kwauze Garland actually managed to stand out a good bit. Of course, when the season started, Texas Longhorns transfer Juwan Mitchell was the standout, Jeremy Banks became the playmaker, and Aaron Beasley and Solon Page III became the rotational guys.

When Mitchell went down, Banks became the lead linebacker with Beasley and Page in a rotation. However, while Banks was a stat machine, they each had the three lowest PFF regular season grades of anybody who played at least 100 snaps on defense last year.

Simply put, linebacker was an issue. Mitchell getting healthy should be a big help, but it’s clear that UT may need more help, especially with one of its future potential stars, Aaron Willis, hitting the transfer portal in the offseason. Could Heupel turn to Garland, a former walk-on, for such help?

It’s certainly possible. Despite having everybody back at linebacker, Tennessee football has more of an open position battle there than most places, and again, Garland has already once shown what he can do. He played in 12 games last year and did register a couple tackles, so an injury here or there could make him a major contributor.