Bowl games are often a time for teams across the country to insert younger players to replace departing talent. Whether it’s through opt-outs or the transfer portal, the low-stakes games can be critical experience for freshmen who haven’t been on the field much yet.
Tennessee football head coach Josh Heupel has done that in the past and said before the Music City Bowl that ‘young guys are gonna get an opportunity to go play’ in the place of Colton Hood at cornerback against Illinois.
That’s not really the route the Vols went with in the 30-28 loss to the Illini, though. Sure, some freshmen got more time than usual, but he instead relied on a long list of veterans, instead. Look at that cornerback position, for example. Redshirt senior William Wright played all but one snap in the game after hardly getting in on defense this year.
Wright deserved a chance to play, but this much of a workload directly cut into reps of true freshmen Tre Poteat (19 snaps) and Timothy Merritt (0 snaps), both of whom haven’t gotten much action this year.
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At linebacker, it was a similar, but less extreme story. Ben Bolton played the fourth most snaps at linebacker for a total of 24. This cut into the workload for freshman Jaedon Harmon (13 snaps) and redshirt freshman Jordan Burns (0 snaps).
On the defensive line, it would’ve made sense to try to get true freshmen Isaiah Campbell and Ethan Utley some run. They played seven and two snaps respectively. At defensive end, Mariyon Dye played only 10 snaps. At safety, Sidney Walton played two and Dylan Lewis didn’t get on the field.
You don’t have to bench veteran starters who played all year or not give any opportunities for guys like Wright or Bolton, who both have a tremendous amount of respect in the locker room and have put in a lot of work, but when it limits how much your highly-recruited freshmen get on the field, it can feel a bit like a wasted opportunity.
