Four-star WR schedules official visit to Tennessee, planning more trips

Tennessee has opened the past two football seasons with blowout victories, and the Vols could start off with a comfortable win in 2023 as well. The Vols have opened as four-touchdown favorites for their season opener against Virginia at Nissan Stadium in Nashville – the kickoff time and television designation for the game on September 2 are yet to be released. It’ll be Tennessee’s first Saturday season opener since 2020 after opening with Thursday night home games against Bowling Green and Ball State to start the past two seasons under head coach Josh Heupel.

The Vols are coming off a breakthrough 11-win season and looking to show staying power with another strong season in 2023.

Multiple sportsbooks have set Tennessee’s projected win total for the upcoming season to 9.5 games, and three early lines for the opener against Virginia have the Vols as huge favorites: -28 per Bet Online, -29 on Caesars and -27 on Draftkings.

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Tennessee initially was scheduled to open the 2023 season at BYU in the return game of a home-and-home series with the Cougars, who won at Neyland Stadium in 2019, but the Vols opted instead to switch opponents and venues and landed a matchup with Virginia in Nashville, where Tennessee also opened the season with wins in 2002 (Wyoming) and 2015 (Bowling Green).

The Vols also have played in three recent Music City Bowls in 2010, 2016 and 2021 as Nashville has become a second home for the program.

While Tennessee is coming off its best season in more than 20 years, Virginia is coming off a three-win debut season under Tony Elliott in 2022. The Cavaliers reached the ACC Championship Game and played in the Orange Bowl in 2019, but last season was Virginia’s first without a bowl game since 2016 – the program opted out of the postseason with a 5-5 record during the pandemic-impacted season in 2020. Long-time Clemson assistant coach and coordinator Elliott, a target for Tennessee during the coaching search that ended in Heupel’s hiring in 2021, is in his first head coaching job in Charlottesville.

The game against Tennessee will be Virginia’s first since a tragic shooting took the lives of three players – wide receiver Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler and linebacker D’Sean Perry – in November and led to the cancelation of the season’s final two games.

Virginia saw its scoring average plummet from 34.6 points per game in 2021 to 17.0 (126th out of 131 FBS teams) in 2022 and will have a new quarterback after Brennan Armstrong transferred to NC State. The Cavaliers improved defensively in 2022, going from 121st nationally in total defense the previous season to 44th, but the offense also has to replace its top two pass-catchers and returns just one starter on the offensive line. That’s not an ideal formula facing a team like Tennessee, which had the top offense in college football last season albeit with some star players that have to be replaced.

The most recent of Tennessee’s four all-time meetings with Virginia came in the 1991 Sugar Bowl, the Vols won 23-22 on a Tony Thompson 1-yard touchdown run with 31 seconds left.