Former Tennessee pitcher Ryan Combs committed to Charlotte baseball Tuesday afternoon just under two weeks after entering the transfer portal and leaving the Volunteer program, D1Baseball’s Kendall Rogers first reported.
Combs spent just one season at Tennessee after transferring in from Polk State (Junior) College in Florida and now heads east to Charlotte for his final year of college eligibility.
The 6-foot-3, 184-pound right-hander entered his junior season with high expectations and impressed early in the season before struggling and seeing his opportunities dwindle. Combs posted a 7.36 ERA AND 1.64 WHIP in 13 appearances and 11 innings pitched. He faced just one batter in SEC play, allowing a hit.
The Sarasota, Florida native joins a Charlotte program that posted a 36-22 (18-9 AAC) record a season ago and has made the NCAA Tournament twice in the last five years. Tennessee faced Charlotte in the Clemson Regional during the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
Combs older brother Aaron was one of the Vols’ best pitchers on their 2024 national championship team, posting a 3.35 ERA in 45.2 innings pitched, recording the final out in the SEC Tournament Championship and the College World Series final series.
More From RTI: Could This Be the Next Tennessee Baseball Alum to Crack the MLB?
The younger Combs brother was one of 27 Tennessee players and 20 pitchers to enter the transfer portal last month. Eight of the 20 pitchers didn’t pitch in a game for Tennessee this past season. Rising junior left hander Dylan Loy was a serious loss for the Vols, throwing 20.1 innings in SEC play last season. The 19 other transfer pitchers combined to throw 7.1 innings in conference play.
The Vols return just four pitchers from their 2024 team in RHP Tegan Kuhns, RHP Brayden Krenzel, RHP Anson Seibert and RHP Nic Abraham. Kuhns and Krenzel each had key roles as freshmen in 2025 while Abraham pitched just 4.1 innings. Seibert was the highest rated pitcher in Tennessee’s 2024 recruiting class but missed the entirety of the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery last summer.
Tennessee has landed eight players in the transfer portal to this point in Rice’s Blaine Brown, Virginia’s Henry Ford, Big South Pitcher of the Year Clay Edmondson (UNC Asheville), SoCon Pitcher of the Year Brady Frederick (ETSU), Kennesaw State’s RHP Bo Rhudy and MIT’s RHP Mason Estrada and Bowling Green utility man Garrett Wright and Bowling Green two-way star DJ Newman.
The Vols will still have to survive the MLB Draft to get Ford, Edmondson, Estrada and Newman to campus. Ford and Edmondson are particularly strong draft risks.
