It’s easy to forget now, but this Tennessee football roster was completely gutted when Josh Heupel and his staff arrived. Making matters worse, Jeremy Pruitt was fired extremely late in the cycle, meaning Heupel had to put together a staff and deal with several holes on the depth chart after seeing around 30 exits via the transfer portal.
After a long search, Tim Banks was brought in as defensive coordinator, and his first spring wasn’t easy. Depth issues were all over the place, particularly at linebacker. The staff was forced to move several pieces around, even repping a long-snapper at the position just to get through practice.