Tennessee Football: Could freshman WR get more playing time?

Tennessee will welcome a true freshman receiver to the stud on Saturday afternoon as Alabama brings Ryan Williams to town. Could they counter with a five-star rookie receiver of their own? According to Josh Heupel, this is possible.

Mike Matthews, one of the crown jewels of last year’s recruiting class for Tennessee, has officially cracked the wide receiver rotation. Matthews managed 13 snaps against Florida, most of them early in the game. It’s possible that some of this is due to the ongoing injuries to Dont’e Thornton, Bru McCoy and Squirrel White.

Matthews battled injuries in camp, which most likely impacted his playing time early on. Now he seems ready to make an impact, and Heupel says he’s ready to take on Alabama.

“Played a ton at the start of the (Florida) game, but as the game went on he just didn’t get the same number of reps as he did at the start,” Heupel said. “Mike is someone who was banged up during training camp and was a little limited in his development at the start of the year. We really like what we see in him. He had a great week of preparation. Expect him to play in this game.”

Matthews was a five-star candidate according to On3’s industry rankings. Standing 6-1 and weighing 180 pounds, he ranked 26th in the class in 2024. Matthews is from Lilburn, Georgia.

He’s already found the end zone once this year, catching this ball from Gaston Moore in mop-up duty against Kent State.

While Matthews isn’t expected to play a major role, it will be interesting to see how much traction he gets. Neither Tennessee receiver appeared on their initial injury report Wednesday, but we are coming off a game in which Thornton only saw four snaps and White was visibly injured.

Kickoff for Tennessee and Alabama is scheduled for Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET. ABC will answer the call.