Tennessee Football: And Rome continues to fall

Tennessee Football is losing another player to the transfer portal as running back Ty Chandler will be looking for a new home for the 2021 season.

I’m the type of person to watch a movie solely because it’s historically accurate, especially war movies. But I was stumped when I was trying to think of a comparison between Tennessee Football and an old empire, or at least a country that was hyped up to become an empire just to collapse three years into their reign before they could even become an empire.

Whatever country that is, would be the country I’d like to reference as Tennessee football. The Vols aren’t Rome but I couldn’t think of an empire that was hyped up to be elite, except for maybe Imperial Japan but fell flat on its face in its attempt to rise to the top.

Anyway, I’ve talked too much about history. On to Tennessee football. Jeremy Pruitt’s Tennessee Volunteers football program saw one of its worst seasons in school history in 2020. This came after the Vols were expected the be at least in the top half of the SEC East, not second to last.

This has led to many current players entering the transfer portal, declaring for the NFL Draft, and verbal commits backing off and signing with another school.

With reports coming out early this morning that running back Ty Chandler has entered the transfer portal, it looks like Pruitt’s Vols could lose another player, and this time, it’s an impact player.

I would consider Chandler one of the better running backs on the roster, if not the best. He’s been competing with Eric Gray for the starting job, and maybe that’s why he’s transferring. He wants to be the No. 1 running back, and he hasn’t found that at Tennessee.

Another reason I can think he’s transferring is how the offense was run during the 2020 season. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue saying it, Jim Chaney is not meant to be an offensive coordinator in 2020 or any year moving forward. At least not at the SEC level.

After the 2020 season, I don’t really blame any player for wanting to transfer out of Knoxville. From the outside looking in, it looks like it’s a big mess in the football department, and I don’t expect everything to be fine within the next year or even two years.

This time last year it looked like Pruitt would be the guy to get Tennessee back to where they belong at the top of the SEC, but as of right now, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, especially if Pruitt can’t keep players on the roster.