Three days after the end of the regular season, Tennessee suffered its first transfer portal casualty. Although the portal doesn’t officially open until Monday, Dec. 9, UT backup offensive lineman Vysen Lang tweeted out his intent to enter when it does.
Lang, who committed to the Vols in 2023, spent most of his time as a backup center and guard. There was talk that he could replace Cooper Mays at center next year. He redshirted in 2023 but saw a decent bit of action there beforehand.
This past year, though, highly touted freshman William Satterwhite began backing up Mays, and Lang moved over to guard, where he played 44 snaps. As a result, while it’s always premature to analyze why a player entered the portal, the likely situation here is that Lang was relegated down in the depth chart.
Sure, the Vols need more help next year at guard as well, but if Lang moved over there, it’s because he didn’t emerge at center the way they wanted him to. Also, Tennessee still has a chance to open up the checkbook for players in the portal, so they could stack up at guard with Javontez Spraggins and Andrej Karic gone.
Given the personnel at the moment, though, it’s hard to see Lang leaving for any reason other than Josh Heupel, Joey Halzle and Glen Elarbee wanting to make room for other talent there. After all, he was clearly going to have an open field to be able to play given all the impending departures.
Shamurad Umarov is still there, as are a host of linemen who committed in 2023 and 2024 to be fair. Sure, some of them are going to enter the portal along with Lang, but there’s a chance some of them emerge. That’s another possibility for the reason Lang entered.
Simply put, there are more good signs than bad signs for the Vols on the offensive line when it comes to Lang entering the portal. It’s still early, and we don’t know how everything is going to shake out, but it’s hard to see Heupel not replacing him.
