For both Nick Coates and Kaelin Drakeford, putting their names in the NCAA transfer portal after the 2024 season was about finding a place to play meaningful football for their rest of their collegiate career.
It’s not that the pair never played a game that mattered during their time at Eastern Illinois — they were part of a Panthers defense that forced 25 turnovers in 2023, which ranked second nationally in the Football Championship Subdivision — it was about the consistency of it all. Aside from the Panthers going 8-3 in that 2023 season, their teams were 6-28 in Coates’ three other seasons and 7-33 in Drakeford’s four.
It didn’t take long for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to pounce on the pair of potential secondary staples, with both joining the program in January. Now, entering Saturday’s season opener at Football Bowl Subdivision member Memphis (4:30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN Plus), Coates and Drakeford are in line to start for the new-look Mocs, who are replacing 10 starters on defense.
Coates is at the rover (nickel) position while Drakeford is at free safety, and the possibility of plug-and-play success is a big plus for the Mocs, who lost 24 players to the portal from the 2024 team that went 7-5 overall and 5-3 in Southern Conference play to fall just short of a spot in the 24-team bracket for the FCS postseason.
“They just get lined up and go,” UTC seventh-year head coach Rusty Wright said of Coates and Drakeford. “We needed guys that played a lot of football, but two guys that have played in football games at our level and been successful as players — maybe not the program they came from, but you watched them on film and do those things — getting them was huge.