Josh Heupel gives injury update on running back Cam Seldon for Tennessee football season
CHATTANOOGA — Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel is optimistic that injured running back Cam Seldon will return quickly enough early in the 2024 season.
“Everything has gone extremely well in his rehab process,” Heupel said Wednesday at the Big Orange Caravan at the Chattanooga Convention Center.
"He's done a good job of staying within the confines of what our medical team is asking him to do. We project him continuing to get healthy throughout the course of the summer and hopefully be ready when it's time to kick off."
How quickly Seldon recovers from a shoulder injury suffered in spring practice is a big factor in whether UT adds a running back, which it hasn't done yet.
“We’ll kind of evaluate where we're at as the rehab process gets started and base our decisions off that and project where he's going to be," Heupel said on March 27.
On Tuesday, the transfer portal closed to new players entering. Schools can still acquire players who are already in the portal, but UT has shown no indications of doing that.
Dylan Sampson is RB1. But who is RB2?
Depth in the backfield could be a concern for the Vols with Jaylen Wright and Jabari Small heading to the NFL and Seldon and freshman Peyton Lewis undergoing offseason surgeries.
Dylan Sampson is RB1. He had 604 yards rushing, 175 yards receiving and eight touchdowns last season while sharing snaps with Wright and Small.
But RB2 is uncertain, at least until Seldon returns.
UT plays Chattanooga, North Carolina State (in Charlotte), Kent State and at Oklahoma in the first month of the season, when running back depth could be a factor.
Aside from Sampson, Seldon is UT’s most experienced running back, but that’s not saying much. Last season, Seldon rushed for 106 yards on 25 carries as a freshman.
Will DeSean Bishop compete with Peyton Lewis?
DeSean Bishop, a two-time Mr. Football at Karns, was the backup running back at the end of spring practice. He missed his 2023 freshman season due to injury.
Khalifa Keith, a 6-foot-1, 233-pounder, is also in the mix. He rushed for 24 yards on 11 carries as a freshman last season.
Lewis was a four-star signee in the 2024 class. He enrolled in January, but he was limited in spring practice after undergoing surgery to repair a previous injury.
Heupel loves Lewis' talent, but he's an unknown for the moment. Lewis will be at full strength in preseason practice in August.
“Well, we haven't seen him live and in person, either, other than the in-game evaluation we got a chance to see (during recruiting),” Heupel said. "But I really like what we did in the second half of spring ball. He wasn't in contact, but he was in a position to do a lot of our walk-through stuff pre-practice and some of the stuff that we were doing in the confines of practice, too.
"(He's) a young player who's got to really push this summer to master it before he gets to put a helmet and shoulder pads on for us."
Why Tennessee hasn’t added a running back from portal
There weren’t a lot of great options in the spring transfer portal, which opened to new players entering on April 16. And the best ones came with a high price tag in NIL money or other obstacles.
Only four running backs with a four-star transfer grade entered in the spring window, according to 247Sports portal rankings.
Damien Martinez will transfer from Oregon State to Miami. ESPN reported that Martinez turned down an NIL offer of $400,000 to remain at Oregon State, so he likely would have cost UT’s collective a lot to serve as Sampson’s sidekick.
Dylan Edwards will transfer from Colorado to Kansas State. Arizona transfer Jordan Wright appears headed to Washington.
Peny Boone briefly appeared to be an option for the Vols, and Rivals.com reported that UT contacted him after he entered the portal. Boone was the MAC Offensive Player of the Year last season when he was at Toledo.
But Boone faces problems with his academic transcript, according to numerous reports, because he’s attempting to transfer to a fourth school. He spent two years at Maryland and two years at Toledo. He transferred to Louisville in January and then re-entered the portal after spring practice.
The previous transfer running back didn't pan out for Vols
Heupel has been burned before by a transfer running back.
In 2022, UT had depth concerns in the backfield during preseason practice. It had only four healthy scholarship running backs, so they signed transfer running back Lyn-J Dixon.
Dixon had spent four seasons at Clemson and seven months at West Virginia. But he lasted only 18 days at UT and never played in a game.
It turned out the Vols didn’t need him. They led the nation in rushing touchdowns (40) during the 2022 regular season.
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email adam.sparks@knoxnews.com. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Josh Heupel gives injury update on Tennessee football RB Cam Seldon
