A Week Zero Deep Dive: Preseason Edition
By Clayton Kilgore
Welcome back to another in the long, illustrious line of Deep Dives.
I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve hit the portion of the summer where I’m just flat ready for football and the weather that comes with it. I’m sick and tired of the sun dominating me, causing me to sweat through my clothes every day after being outside for two minutes. I’m done with swamp ass for 2025.
Thankfully, MERCIFULLY, in exactly one month, we’ll be preparing. It might still be a little toasty, but at least we’ll have football. Personally, I’ll be slipping on my finest Vols attire, queueing up the Butt Rock Playlist, and cracking open a bad-boy soda to lead up to the season opener.
Whether your preparation involves tailgating outside Mercedes-Benz Stadium or pulling the ribs off the smoker at home, college football is rapidly approaching.
I’ll admit - it’s been a weird offseason for me as a Vols fan. Hell, it’s been weird for all of us. There have been spurts of pessimism as I’ve been watching what’s going on in college athletics and there are times I fear it’s passed me by. College athletics has become chaotic and dumb with obscene NIL money being dangled in front of teenagers, potential tampering, and transfer portal temptations. Things aren’t the same as they used to be, and that’s okay, but on more than one occasion I’ve felt like “the old man yelling at the clouds”.
With that said, we’re getting close and I’m giddy all over again. All the offseason nonsense seems to melt away about this time of year.
With fall training camp up and running, the reports will be rapid firing for the next 30 days up until the official season kicks off on August 30th, so I think it’s time we sit down and assess.
The Vols open up against Syracuse. We’ll dive deep on Syracuse and their program at a later time, but for now I’ll just say that they lost Kyle McCord who led the nation in passing yards last year. Big shoes to fill, in my opinion. More on this in a few weeks.
We still don’t know who will start at QB. Y’all mind if I pop off? Yeah, Nico left, as we all know. And yes, it stunk, we’re allowed to say that. I hate that the Vols seem to find themselves at the epicenter of these types of storms, but here we are. Maybe I’m being a crybaby about it, but quite possibly the most uncomfortable, unsavory scenario in this brand new NIL era has victimized the Vols already. Our most important player held out for more money, ended up leaving in a nasty public split, and if we’re being cynical here, it’ll probably happen more and more until some semblance of order is restored (if that ever happens). I’m fine, we’re all fine.
In this bizarro relationship gone sour, I loved that Heupel dug his heels in and wasn’t gonna be jerked around by a grossly underperforming player’s overbearing, self-important dad. These colors don’t run. It just would’ve been a horrid look and a poor precedent to set if he caved in that spot. I still believe Nico could’ve stuck around, gotten better, and made himself some money at the next level, but he blamed his teammates and ultimately slithered out west. Enjoy those California taxes, my guy.
Sidenote: How desperate and pathetic is UCLA throughout this entire ordeal? You’d think they’d learned a valuable lesson after Nico’s little brother took a fat filthy shit in their shoes at the last second and flipped to Arkansas on Signing Day, but instead they welcomed both of the Iamaleava brothers back with open arms.
Whatever happens to UCLA now will be of their own attrition. I wash my hands of this. When Nico’s dad inevitably gets mad and wants to go buy new receivers because Nico chronically overthrows guys on deep routes, we can rest easy knowing that that’s now DeShaun Foster’s problem, and for that I feel #blessed.
More recently, Nico decided to take the low road during an interview at Big Ten Media Days and said he was moving closer to his family. This might’ve been a more palatable excuse to leave if his family was out west and didn’t live in Knoxville, but - OOPS - they did live in Knoxville, so it was a dumb answer and all but confirmed my suspicions on him that he/his camp wanted more money than he was worth.
I know this is probably petty, but college football is petty and I don’t care. Everything was fine when he was dominating 7-on-7 camps wearing Cookie Monster pajama pants, even if it did seem a little weird at the time. Everyone was thinking it. But like me, most were willing to overlook the quirks if he was the shit.
It slowly started to drift into intolerable territory when he wasn’t delivering, wasn’t as advertised in-game, and concurrently refused to stop wearing slippers in public. Then came the “contract negotiation” phase of his tenure. Again, maybe this is an old man take, but I’m of the belief that you simply cannot dress like a 5 year old at a sleepover, play at a painfully subpar level, and throw out a list of demands before the season is even over. Then shit hit the fan. Kirk Herbstreit claims his dad went to the Heupel and demanded they improve at O-Line and receiver, which is certifiably insane and quite possibly the most brazen, disrespectful move of all time. Again, I know things have changed a bit, but can you imagine someone doing that to Nick Saban and the carnage that would ensue?
Anyways, I’m totally over it.
Joey Aguilar QB1? Moving forward, I think the easy assumption is that we went out and traded Nico for Joey Aguilar so that he’d be the starter, but who knows how far along he is at this point? It’s training camp, so we don’t have a ton of intel, but he is wearing #6 - a good choice, because you know who else wears #6 now? Baker Mayfield. Another quarterback cast out and betrayed before bouncing back and putting the idiot haters on severe hush-mode. I’d love to see Aguilar do the same in 2025.
Looking at it from a production standpoint, he’s superior to Nico on paper in most of the important measurable categories (see the excellent chart below). There’s one pesky little area that Nico is better… turnovers. If Aguilar indeed takes control of the QB1 spot, rediscovers his 2023 form (3,757 yards/33 TDs/10 INTs), plays smart and limits the turnovers, then I think the Vols come out on the better side of the deal without a doubt.
Let us not rule out Merklinger. Maybe the stars align and Merklinger is the guy. It’s worth monitoring and we’ve got a long way to go before Syracuse heads south for their proper whoopin’. Word out of camp on Wednesday was that Merklinger had a strong day and looked like the most accurate passer. I also like to think that Jake Merklinger has a bit of an advantage just in terms of familiarity since he’s been around the program and Heupel longer. Reason would tell us that he has at least a tenuous grasp on running the offense already as a result, so when I consider those factors, the thought crosses my mind that maybe he does beat out Aguilar after all.
To be clear, I fully expect Aguilar to be the starter, but he’ll have to acclimate quickly. Regardless of the outcome, healthy competition for the job isn’t a bad thing in a quarterback room. Time will tell and it’ll be an interest training camp to follow.
Boo Carter is back. The Tennessee Vols fanbase was ready to make Boo Carter public enemy #1 after Nico’s cowardly exit. The troops were mobilized - We’re a passionate bunch so when it’s high alert, we’re very protective of the program. Some might say to a fault. I had almost talked myself into his departure being “addition by subtraction” and needless to say, if Boo had besmirched us in a public forum it could’ve gotten real freaky real quick.
Thankfully, he didn’t.
“Addition by retention” (???). Not even sure that’s a thing, but we’re rolling with it.
He’s at practice, presumably regaining the trust of his teammates and proving that he’s bought in, so we can all exhale for now. He’s not actually practicing yet and my expert hypothesis is that he’s being subjected to some sort of hellish conditioning for a few days before he earns the privilege of being with his teammates on the practice field. It may just be a “take your lumps and get back out there” situation.
All the drama and rumors aside, Boo is important. I don’t wanna get ahead of myself here because it’s still very early, but I see no reason that he can’t be Travis Hunter-Lite in 2025 and make national headlines as the premier college football player on both sides of the ball. Maybe he could just fool around and win a Heisman trophy of his own, who knows?
In all seriousness, as long as he’s in good standing with Heupel and the lads, I’m back in Boo’s corner. He’s a dynamic player and it’s undeniable that he’s a game changer when he’s on the field, so that’s where I would prefer him to be. Welcome back, Boo!
Jermod McCoy is not back (yet). It’s been a while since Tennessee has had a true, high-end lockdown corner and it’s a bummer that he tore his knee up, but there’s still plenty to be excited about with McCoy. For now, we shall focus on the good that’s to come. We’ll start with the fact that he’s still projecting as a top-half first round pick and the #1 overall cornerback in the 2026 draft class, which should tell you all you need to know. In a perfect world, he gets back to 100% at the right time to help blast us into the College Football Playoff stratosphere again like a big orange rocket ship. To quote a genius and all-around very good guy:
“If he gets that knee healthy and we get hot at the right time, lemme tell ya, anything can happen. ANYTHING.” -Clayton Kilgore
OTHER THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS:
Miles Kitselman is a Top-5 tight end in college football, I’m sure of it. Last year, Joey Aguilar spread it around pretty good, but tied for the lead in touchdown receptions was his tight end Eli Wilson with five. This isn’t an absurd number by any means, but Kitselman should be a senior leader on this offense and I lust over the idea of a big-bodied dominant tight end catching passes down the seam and making his presence known in the red zone. If you ask me, beefy targets like Kitselman with reliable hands are the second best security blanket for quarterbacks behind a running back checking down. It’s important to note that he’s a little banged up, but he’s on the mend, and I’m expecting big things from the Big Kitty.
David Sanders is a mountain. Ben McKee dropped a little nugget that David Sanders has put on forty (!!!) pounds since he got to campus. He’s all the way up to ~305 pounds and nothing would please me more than to see him burying whoever’s in front of him deep, deep into the earth’s crust.
Regarding the McKee tweet: I love to see our guys crushing Uncrustables. God-tier snack in any setting.
While we’re on the topic, strawberry or grape?
That’s all for now, I’ll be back for a Deep Dive on the Syracuse “Orange” (dumb name) the week leading up to kickoff.
