Saturday’s game between Tennessee football and Georgia will be the biggest start of the careers of both Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley to this point. The pair of second-year receivers have been thrust into the spotlight this season, but both have looked sharp through two games. Now comes the biggest test yet.
Heading into the season, there was a good bit of outside concern about what the Vols’ receiving corps would look like with so much of the expected production unproven. Even Chris Brazzell, the veteran in the room, was typically the third outside receiver on the depth chart a year ago behind Bru McCoy and Dont’e Thornton Jr.
While head coach Josh Heupel and receivers coach Kelsey Pope were confident enough to give the keys to the position room to this trio, they heard the outside noise about whether the group would be good enough this early in their career. All that did was motivate them, though.
“I think they all got chips on their shoulders. I think they all keep receipts,” Pope said. “They’ve heard some of the stuff, like we all have. But that’s the good thing about being an athlete, is you can channel that stuff the right way. In the end, you can have the world in your hands and you can have the last say so. And I think those guys are very in tune with that and they’re channeling it the right way, which is in practice with the way they work and the way they prepare in the building. And we just got to keep doing that to build consistency. That’s what we’re looking forward to now is, we don’t want to be one-hit wonders. We don’t want to have a few good games. We got to build consistency in order to be a real elite offense.”
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Staley confirmed this mindset shortly after Pope revealed it to the media. He knew there were doubts about what he could do coming off a true freshman year that saw him not get much run.
By year’s end, he had only produced three catches for 21 yards in four games. So far, in 2025, he has already managed nine catches for 134 yards and a 73-yard touchdown reception.
His fellow second-year receiver, Matthews, is in a similar boat. He posted seven catches for 90 yards and two touchdowns in 11 games as a true freshman. Through two games as a sophomore, Matthews owns eight catches for 140 yards and a 53-yard touchdown.
“We definitely have a chip on our shoulder,” Staley said. “Coming from last year, didn’t play as much. Coming into this year, people were saying they’re young, freshman, this is the first time they’re started, he probably doesn’t know what to do. That put a chip on our shoulder and just made us play harder.”
The next test is set for 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. Tennessee and Georgia will meet in front of a ‘Checker Neyland’ crowd with all eyes on the matchup. ESPN’s College GameDay will be in attendance, and Vols legend John Henderson will be recognized during the contest.
