The transfer portal catches a lot of flak for altering the trajectory of many college players and fundamentally changing the way rosters are constructed, but when it is examined on a case-by-case basis, success stories can be found.
As is often the case when transfers occur within the same conference, players end up playing against their former school. That will happen this Saturday when a pair of Arkansas football players – center Addison Nichols and nickelback Doneiko Slaughter – face off against No. 4 Tennessee, the school at which both played multiple years.
Transfers within the SEC were once considered blue-moon occurrences, but now are commonplace. Arkansas is even leaning into it, tabbing both Nichols and Slaughter as captains ahead of the game.
“That’s the era of college football that we’re in,” Tennessee football coach Josh Heupel said this week. “You have an opportunity to, at times during the season, play some guys that were inside of your own program. Those two guys are really good kids. They do things the right way off the field, they compete extremely hard on the field and both of those guys are playing extremely well for Arkansas right now.”
Giving former Vols the honor of captaincy for their game against Tennessee isn’t even new for this season. Just a couple weeks ago, Oklahoma did it for Da’Jon Terry, a former Vol-turned-Sooner, ahead of the Vols’ OU tilt in Norman.
That didn’t work out too well for Terry and the Sooners, with Tennessee taking a 10-point win, and a lot of Vols fans are expecting Tennessee’s current players to show out against their former teammates this Saturday. When learning of the captaincy of Nichols and Slaughter, one such fan immediately launched in:
Another decided that Nichols would have zero hope going up against the heart of Tennessee’s defensive line, 325-pound Omari Thomas and 340-pound Elijah Simmons:
The most discontent portion of the fanbase is always the loudest, of course. By all account from people within the Volunteer program, both players left on about as good of terms as you could expect in 2024 with a multitude of factors involved. This trolling, however, comes part of the fanbase that’s feeling itself. For good reason, too, given the Volunteers are enjoying their highest ranking in the AP Poll since 2005 at No. 4, are ranked in the Top 3 in both total offense and total defense and have a true freshman counting down the minutes till he can administer an ass-beltin’ to the next opponent.
While some on the Vols side want to think that the transfers of Nichols and Slaughter represented addition by subtraction, reality is more complicated. Let’s look at the former’s situation first.
Arkansas Center Leaves Knoxville For Playing Time
For Addison Nichols, he was simply stuck behind a log jam in Knoxville. It was more likely he would have ended up as the third-string center as a Volunteer rather than the guy getting the snaps on Saturday.
In an interview back in January, Nichols told Best of Arkansas Sports, “I just didn’t see myself hitting my full potential in the room I was in.”
2024 translation: As a Vol, he would have almost certainly spent the entire upcoming primetime Arkansas vs Tennessee matchup on the bench. He was right to see the writing on the wall. Starting center Cooper Mays has played more than 2,000 career offensive snaps and, despite missing four games last season with a hernia injury, Mays still garnered second-team All-SEC honors from the AP.
Nichols didn’t play when Mays was out, either. Ollie Lane, who has since graduated, assumed the starting role, leaving Nichols the odd man out. And even with Lane gone in 2024, Nichols was going to have stiff competition from redshirt freshman Vysen Lang for the No. 2 job.
“He certainly wasn’t gonna start,” Tennessee beat writer Ryan Schumpert of Rocky Top Insider said in an interview with BoAS. “[Nichols] was gonna be in a true competition just for a backup spot.”
Tennessee would have loved to keep Nichols around, as most of the starting offensive line will be out of eligibility after this year, but the move has proven to be best for all parties involved. Nichols went to Arkansas, where he had sure-fire playing time waiting for him, and the Vols kept their veteran center who is on the 2024 Rimington Trophy Watch List, given annually to the nation’s best center.
“I don’t think Tennessee pushed him out by any means,” Schumpert said. “I think they would have liked to have him back from the standpoint of, Tennessee loses four or five starting offensive linemen after this year, including all three guys in the interior. If he would have stuck around, he would have been in competition next season to try to win a starting job. I also don’t think Tennessee loved him by any means either.”
Mays has slightly but consistently outgraded Nichols at the center position, according to Pro Football Focus. Through five weeks of the season, Mays’ season grade is 69.9, while Nichols is at 63.4. Nichols has also had significant snap issues, something with which he had also struggled at Tennessee.
“Early on [in] his freshman year and into his sophomore year, he had a lot of problems snapping the ball,” Schumpert said. “Tennessee runs shotgun the entire time. He had a lot of bad snaps. One year because of the renovations at the stadium, they didn’t have a spring game, so we just got to watch a scrimmage on the practice field. He was really bad that day snapping it.”
Arkansas coach Sam Pittman acknowledged that in order for Nichols to be tenable at center moving forward, he’s going to have to get better at snapping.
“One was definitely wide and I talked to him and (offensive line coach Eric Mateos) talked to him,” Pittman said after the Texas A&M game. “That’s one too many and we’ve got to get it fixed. He’s trying awful hard. He’s a good kid. We’ve got to have consistency there.”
Hog Defensive Back Departs As Vols Retool Secondary
Slaughter’s case is much more complicated and involves more than just someone looking for more playing time, something that existed even before the new era of college sports.
“I think he certainly would have been, at the very least, involved in the rotation (if he stayed) in the defensive backfield,” Schumpert said. “(He could even be) starting in some spot.”
Slaughter was part of a mass exodus from the Tennessee football program.
“He was a part of a larger part where Tennessee just lost a ton of defensive backs last year.” Schumpert said. A lot of defensive backs that had been there really (Tennessee football coach Josh) Heupel’s entire tenure and guys have played a lot and were just kind of ‘meh.’”
Slaughter joined Brandon Turnage (Ole Miss), Warren Burrell (Georgia Tech), Wesley Walker (Michigan) as a larger group of defensive backs that found new homes. They also lost its two starting corners that both went pro.
Money was at least one of the contributing factors that led Slaughter to transfer out of Knoxville, but not in the way we’ve come to expect.
“The cost of living is very cheap,” Slaughter said of Fayetteville in December prior to committing to Arkansas. “I can bring my family here and have no problems off the field.”
Despite plenty of opportunities in Tennessee, Slaughter opted to transfer out. Tennessee hasn’t missed a beat either, as it boasts the best defense in the country in terms of yards allowed at 176 per game, well clear of second.
Interestingly, Christian Harrison, who starts at Slaughter’s nickel position, has the lowest PFF grade of anyone on the Vols’ defense. That hasn’t kept the unit from allowing just 28 total points through four games, though. Slaughter has nearly equaled his 2023 production in five games with Arkansas. He has 27 tackles with the Hogs and his first interception since 2022 after 32 tackles in 10 games with the Vols last year
Nichols and Slaughter will now have the chance to go up against their former team, something that should give them extra energy. However, the extra adrenaline can only get you so far, reality hits fast in the trenches.
“There’s something to some of that,” Pittman said on whether it gives the players more energy playing against their former team. “I also think that lasts about four or five plays and then you get hit in the head and somebody cuts you, somebody knocks hell out of you.”
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