Tennessee LEO Chaz Coleman has been absent from spring practices and other team activities over the past couple of weeks, leading to speculation over the future of the Penn State transfer. Coleman again was not present as the Vols wrapped up spring ball with the Orange & White Game on Saturday at Neyland Stadium. Head coach Josh Heupel provided an update on Coleman afterward.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately Chaz is dealing with some things off the field, and he\u2019s got to handle that and go through that process,\u201d Heupel said. \u201cWe\u2019re here to help and support him in all of those ways and will continue to do that. But that\u2019s ultimately the beginning part of his journey right now, that (there\u2019s) some things that he\u2019s got to work through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coleman was rated a five-star transfer and ranked the No. 7 overall player and the No. 2 edge in the portal for the 2026 cycle despite little production as a freshman at Penn State.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-4, 250-pound former high school quarterback played in just nine games for the Nittany Lions and had eight tackles, but three were tackles for loss. He also recovered two fumbles and forced one and recorded a sack. Coleman recovered a fumble against Ohio State and had a strip-sack he nearly returned for a touchdown against FIU.<\/p>\n
He played just 150 defensive snaps, but led all FBS freshman in pass-rush grade (90.3) per Pro Football Focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s explosive,\u201d said new Tennessee defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who dubbed Coleman \u201cThe Chazmanian Devil\u201d during preseason camp at Penn State last season. \u201cHe is difficult to block. He has a little bit of an invisible cloak, where he can twist, turn, beat guys one on one.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has great initial quickness off the ball, so he\u2019s a guy that can create havoc for an offense and really creates some matchup issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coleman, who chose the Vols over Ohio State and LSU out of the portal, was part of the group of coaches and players to move from Penn State to Tennessee this offseason. Defensive lineman Xavier Gilliam, linebacker Amare Campbell and safety Dejuan Lane all were Nittany Lions who became Vols and are poised to make impacts on defense this fall. On the coaching staff, Anthony Poindexter (co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach), Andrew Jackson (LEOs coach), Brent Zdebski (defensive analyst) and Shane Eachus (defensive analyst) all came with Knowles from State College.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though he was a young guy, he played the game with a recklessness and like a sixth sense he had about him,\u201d said Jackson, Coleman\u2019s position coach with the Vols after he was the assistant defensive line coach for Penn State in 2025. \u201cThe first thing that caught our eyes were him running to the ball. Even though he didn\u2019t know what to do, his hustle, his effort, him trying to play really strong and being fearless against kids that were older than him or bigger than him or stronger than him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe really had no fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tennessee\u2019s fear with Coleman\u2019s uncertainty is the impact his absence could have on its rebuilt pass-rush. The Vols lost their top six players from last season\u2019s defense in terms of quarterback pressures. LEO Joshua Josephs, ends Dominic Bailey and Tyre West and tackle Bryson Eason were all seniors, and LEOs Caleb Herring and Jordan Ross transferred.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust in general I think the pass rush has been good,\u201d Heupel said after Tennessee\u2019s second spring scrimmage. \u201cThat\u2019s certainly an area that as we continue to go through the rest of spring and into training camp, a point of emphasis for us. Being able to play with different personnel packages as we find out who are our best and making sure that we\u2019ve got those guys on the football field.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetween just four-man rushes, we\u2019ve been able to apply some pressure. Certainly in the scope of our blitz packages as well, it\u2019s been good. We\u2019ve just got to continue to grow on that side of it \u2013 certainly a point of emphasis for us as we finish out spring ball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennessee LEO Chaz Coleman has been absent from spring practices and other team activities over the past couple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-864278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116388331367116921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}