Tennessee will have to move forward without one of its key young pieces after coach Josh Heupel confirmed on Sept. 7 that wide receiver Joakim Dodson suffered a season-ending leg injury in the Vols’ opener against Furman.
Dodson, a sophomore, is part of Tennessee’s return game and had been the backup behind Braylon Staley at slot receiver. With him out, freshman Tyreek King - the former Knox Catholic standout - is expected to slide into that backup slot role.
The injury happened late in Tennessee’s 56-9 win over the Paladins, when Dodson was hurt on a kickoff return in the fourth quarter. He remained on the turf for several minutes before UT trainers helped him off the field, and he was later spotted on crutches.
Dodson’s first year in Knoxville gave Tennessee a small but memorable special teams moment. As a freshman in 2025, he played in five games and made most of his impact there, finishing with just two catches.
His biggest play came in the Music City Bowl against Illinois, when he took a kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown. That made him only the third Tennessee player ever to return a kickoff for a touchdown in a bowl game, alongside Pete Panuska in the 1984 Sun Bowl and Willie Gault in the 1981 Garden State Bowl.
A three-star recruit in the 2025 class, Dodson arrived from Baylor School in Chattanooga after spending three years at Collierville High School near his hometown of Memphis. The 247Sports Composite listed him as the No. 91 receiver in the class and the No. 21 prospect in Tennessee.
Tennessee, now 1-0, heads to Atlanta this weekend to face Georgia Tech, which is 0-1, on Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
In Other News...
Tennessee's Opener Told One Story But The Film May Say Another
Tennessees 56-9 win over Furman looked like the kind of season opener that can smooth over a lot of early questions, but the game film offered a more layered picture. Pro Football Focus went back through the matchup and graded Volunteers players on a 1-to-100 scale, giving the staff and fans a different lens than the scoreboard alone.
Those grades are built to strip away some of the emotion that comes with a comfortable win, and they can sometimes diverge from what coaches see on the sideline or in the meeting room. For Tennessee, that makes the opener less of a finished product and more of a first checkpoint, with the real value coming in how the performance is judged once the film slows everything down. [Read more 🡒]
Jesse Perry Just Gave Tennessee An Encouraging Offensive Line Sign
Jesse Perry gave Tennessee a useful glimpse of what the offensive line can look like when it is holding up its end of the bargain. On a recent 55-yard touchdown pass, the right tackle was a key part of the play, coming through with the kind of block that helps turn a routine snap into a chunk gain. It was the sort of snap linemen usually only get noticed for when something goes wrong, but this one stood out for all the right reasons.
SEC Network analyst Cole Cubelic singled out Perrys blocking in a Twitter recap, and Pro Football Focus graded him as Tennessees highest-rated offensive lineman from the game. For a unit that is always under the microscope in the SEC, that kind of recognition matters, especially when it comes on a play that helped the offense hit big. The question now is whether Perry can keep that level of play going as the Volunteers keep sorting out their front. [Read more 🡒]
Tennessees Opening Win Just Created A New Depth Problem
Tennessees season-opening win came with an immediate personnel hit, as wide receiver Joakim Dodson went down with a leg injury during a kick return and is expected to miss the rest of the regular season. Before leaving the game, Dodson had logged 15 offensive snaps and handled one kickoff return for 20 yards, giving the Vols a brief look at a player who was part of both the passing game and special teams mix.
Now the challenge shifts to depth, especially in the slot and on kick returns, where Tennessee has to sort out who can absorb those snaps and those touches. It is the kind of early-season problem teams hope to avoid, because it does not just remove a receiver from the rotation, it also forces a quick answer on special teams for a unit that can be easy to overlook until an injury changes the math. [Read more 🡒]