Mike Matthews was one of the highest-ranked players in Tennessee’s 2024 signing class, and he played on a regular basis as a true freshman and started to take on a bigger role toward the end of the season. He now might be on the verge of exploring other options.
Tennessee’s freshman wide receiver, who’s a former five-star prospect, is planning to enter the NCAA transfer portal, according to a report early Sunday morning from On3’s Hayes Fawcett. Matthews appeared in 11 of the Vols’ 13 games this season and finished the year with seven receptions for 90 yards and two touchdowns.
Saturday was the final day of the first transfer-portal window for the 2024-25 cycle. Players had until 11:59 p.m. local time to submit their names to enter the portal. Compliance departments at schools across the country have 48 hours to process a player’s paperwork, so players from teams that have already finished their seasons will continue to be added to the portal Monday and perhaps even into Tuesday.
Coming out of Parkview High School in Lilburn, Ga., the 6-foot-1, 197-pound Matthews was a five-star prospect in the industry-generated 247Sports Composite, where he was ranked the No. 24 overall player and No. 6 wide receiver in the 2024 class. According to 247Sports, he was a four-star prospect who was ranked the No. 40 overall player and No. 9 wide receiver in the 2024 class.
Matthews sat out Tennessee’s first two games this season because of an injury before bursting onto the scene by catching his first career touchdown pass in his collegiate debut Sept. 14 against Kent State. He caught two passes for 35 yards against the Golden Flashes, including his 18-yard score.
But he had only hit-and-miss production the rest of the season. He caught three passes for 30 yards during the Vols’ regular-season finale at Vanderbilt, a game in which Tennessee’s wide-receiver rotation was depleted by injuries. He also had a 25-yard reception Nov. 23 in the Vols’ 56-0 shutout of UTEP.
With Tennessee again relying on a smaller group of receivers, Matthews was on the field for 28 snaps during the Vols’ 42-17 loss last week at Ohio State in the first round of the College Football Playoff. But he didn’t catch a pass against the Buckeyes, with Tennessee’s offense struggling for most of the night and finishing with only 104 passing yards.
Last month, Vols senior wide receiver Bru McCoy spoke highly of Matthews and his development during his first year in the program.
«I mean, he’s one of those guys, a younger guy that I get to spend a lot of time with,» McCoy said of Matthews last month. «That’s like my little bro, my guy. And I tell him all the time, ‘Just don’t be in a hurry. Don’t feel like you’re underachieving just because you’re not living it out exactly how you pictured it.’ I was a guy like him — a five-star, the No. 1 athlete coming out — and my story didn’t go the way I wanted it to.
«It’s different than his situation. But, for him, I just remind him, like, be urgent, but understand you have time. Don’t let that time let you get lax. Still continue to push the needle, but just be ready for when that opportunity comes and don’t look back when it does, you know, and remember how you felt in these moments when you’re just itching to want to be on the field and contribute. Use that. As soon as the opportunity comes, let that fuel you and then take off.»