Tennessee had 69 scholarship football players during coach Josh Heupel’s debut year in 2021, when the Volunteers rebounded from a three-win debacle under predecessor Jeremy Pruitt by posting a 7-5 regular-season record and taking a trip to the Music City Bowl.
The Vols were limited due to sanctions that resulted from the turbulent Pruitt era, but their personnel has steadily increased entering Saturday afternoon’s opener versus the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga inside Neyland Stadium. Tennessee and UTC are scheduled to kick off at 12:45 on the SEC Network.
“We’re not quite at a full roster yet, but we really like the group that we have,” Heupel said Monday. “As we continue to recruit, length, athleticism and physicality are traits that we are looking for on the field. I really like this team, and we have to continue to grow throughout the course of it.”
If only sixth-year Mocs coach Rusty Wright had such numbers.
While Tennessee is a Bowl Subdivision program that can provide up to 85 scholarships, UTC plays in the Championship Subdivision, which has a cap of 63. The Vols have benefited from fuller rosters the past two seasons, posting a combined 20-6 mark, and the NCAA under a proposed revenue-sharing plan could allow FBS schools as many as 105 scholarships as soon as next season.