With a disappointing 2025 season in the rearview, Tennessee football now turns its attention to a highly important offseason as they look to rebuild the roster to compete to make it back to the College Football Playoffs in 2026.
Friday is an important day for Tennessee football as it marks the official opening of the transfer portal. It’s a new portal period this year which begins on Jan. 2 and runs through Jan. 16 with a special window period for players on teams who are still playing in the College Football Playoff.
The winter portal period is also the only portal period this season meaning there’s no opportunity to bolster rosters after spring practice.
While the portal does not officially open until Friday, a good chunk of players have already announced their intentions to enter the portal. That means that programs across the country are already scouting, assessing and likely back channeling to players of interest in the portal.
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Transfers can visit schools starting on Friday and with classes starting at various colleges in early January, most transfers will probably look to make decisions relatively quickly. At Tennessee, the spring semester does not begin until Jan. 20 so there’s a bit more time, but we could still learn a good bit about Tennessee’s plans pretty quickly.
To date, 11 Tennessee players have announced plans to enter the transfer portal. That group includes Boo Carter, Jamal Wallace, Kellen Lindstrom, Brenden Anes, Marcus Goree Jr, Jake Merklinger, Peyton Lewis, Trevor Duncan, Herb Gray, Max Anderson and Tommy Winton III.
None of the 11 players started for Tennessee last season while Carter, Wallace and Lewis are the only ones who played meaningful snaps. We’ll see if anyone else jumps in the portal after it officially opens, but Tennessee has so far done a good job retaining its best players.
