Tennessee receiver, former five-star recruit enters transfer portal

Tennessee receiver Mike Matthews entered the transfer portal Saturday night, shortly before the winter portal window closed, On3’s Hayes Fawcett reported first.

Matthews is the sixth Tennessee receiver to enter the transfer portal this month, joining Kaleb Webb, Chas Nimrod, Nathan Leacock, Nate Spillman and Squirrel White.

A former five-star recruit, Tennessee expected Matthews to be a key piece of the 2025 puzzle as the Vols look to rebuild their receiving core after a lackluster 2024 season and a mass exodus to the portal over the past month.

Matthews played in the final 11 games of his freshman season after an injury sidelined him at the start of the year. Acting as Bru McCoy’s backup for most of the season, Matthews caught seven passes for 90 yards and two touchdowns.

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The Lilburn, Georgia native’s best game of the season came against Vanderbilt when he caught three passes for 30 yards and a touchdown. With 199 total snaps during the season, Matthews totaled one 61.1 PFF class that ranked fourth among Tennessee receivers who played over 100 snaps.

With Matthews gone, Tennessee has just two returning scholarship players in Chris Brazzell and Braylon Staley.

Brazzell was a starter for Tennessee in 2024, but was disappointing in his first year after transferring from Tulane, catching just 29 passes for 333 yards and two touchdowns. Staley caught three passes for 21 yards in his freshman season at Tennessee.

The Vols signed three prep receivers earlier this month, including four-stars Travis Smith and Radarious Jackson, as well as three-star Joakim Dodson.

Josh Heupel and his staff will need to be overly active on the transfer portal in the coming weeks to put a competent core of receivers on the field for Nico Iamaleava in 2025.