Nico Iamaleava has stolen all the attention, but he is one of several Tennessee Football transfer portal entries since the end of spring practice. Most of them are meaningless. However, Sunday night, the Vols suffered another transfer from a player who could have been key for them this fall.
Offensive lineman Larry Johnson III announced on Instagram Sunday morning his intention to enter the transfer portal. At 6’7″ 365 pounds, Johnson is a rising sophomore and was a member of the Vols’ 2023 recruiting class. He played 133 snaps last year across five regular season games.
Johnson’s entry follows fellow offensive lineman Ayden Bussell, who entered the portal on Saturday. Last week, John Slaughter and Christian Charles also entered the portal. Outside of Iamaleava, though, Johnson is the only player Tennessee Football should be concerned about.
With John Campbell Jr. gone, Johnson was one of the leading candidates to start at right tackle opposite Lance Heard. He showed flashes last year, putting together the best PFF grade of any lineman in UT’s win over the Oklahoma Sooners, where he also saw significant action. There was clear potential.
In fact, Johnson’s entry can only mean one of three things, and two of them are bad. Either the Vols are running low on NIL funds, Johnson is leaving over the state of the program after Iamaleava’s departure, or David Sanders Jr. is the clear favorite to win that job after spring ball.
Sanders is the five-star in UT’s 2025 recruiting class, and given how highly rated he was, there’s a chance he could start immediately. He was certainly in the rotation, so hopeful Vol fans will point to that as the main reason Johnson entered the portal.
However, with the recent exceptions of Trey Smith, Darnell Wright and Wanya Morris, UT has a long history of true freshman not being able to start on the offensive line. Are we to believe Sanders is on the level of Smith and Wright? Given his recruiting ranking, maybe he is.
At this point, though, it seems much more likely there’s an underlying issue with Tennessee Football. Johnson had too great of an opportunity for this upcoming year to up and leave after spring practice. Even if he wasn’t going to beat out Sanders, he’d have been the utility tackle to back up Sanders or Heard.
Now, with him gone, who fills that void? Jesse Perry? Bennett Warren? A transfer to be named? Perhaps Josh Heupel’s program isn’t on as solid ground as we thought. If that’s the case, Tennessee Football may be in even bigger trouble down the lilne.
