There are apparently multiple ways to arrive as freshmen within Tennessee's football program.
The early birds showed up in December and went through workouts for the Citrus Bowl, with that 12-player contingent containing the Bradley Central defensive back duo of Boo Carter and Marcus Goree Jr. There are some who are living out their high school experiences, with McCallie defensive end and state champion wrestler Carson Gentle and Birmingham five-star edge rusher Jordan Ross among the seven Volunteers signees in the 2024 class who are choosing that route.
Then there is the Lipscomb Academy tandem of defensive back Kaleb Beasley and linebacker Edwin Spillman, who enrolled at Tennessee on Monday just in time to start spring practice.
"It's been awesome getting to learn how college works from the football aspect of it and from the classroom," Spillman said Tuesday in a news conference. "It's definitely been a learning process, but it's been good so far."
Tennessee is two practices into the 15 that are allotted each spring by the NCAA. The Vols were off Wednesday and will practice again Thursday.
Beasley and Spillman learned in December that they could graduate early from the Nashville-based private school by taking online courses, which they completed a couple of weeks ago. They plan to return to Lipscomb Academy in May to go through the graduation ceremony.
"It was definitely a grind," Beasley said. "We were in the library every day getting our school work done, but I like the advantage we get of being here early and getting the calls down. It's a two-month head start compared to everybody who gets here in the summer."
The 6-foot, 180-pound Beasley and the 6-1, 215-pound Spillman were solid four-star prospects in the recent signing cycle, with Beasley tallying 24 interceptions during his Lipscomb career. Spillman amassed 305 tackles and 49 tackles for loss during his time with the Mustangs, racking up 27 of those TFLs last season.
Lipscomb Academy won the 2021 and 2022 Division II-AA state championships with ease, but the Mustangs had a rocky first year at the Division II-AAA level, going 4-6 with a forfeiture against Briarcrest Christian and getting ruled ineligible by the TSSAA for postseason play.
"I think Edwin and I are the first ones to do this from our region," Beasley said. "I was excited to get here. I feel that it's definitely an advantage for sure."
It's definitely unique as well.
"Doing Zooms with (linebackers) Coach (William) Inge definitely helped me a lot in terms of picking things up," Spillman said. "Everybody else already knows it. It didn't really matter what time it was. I just wanted to come in and get this spring in."
Staying at eight
The Southeastern Conference announced Wednesday afternoon that it would remain with an eight game league schedule for the 2025 football season.
Each of the 16 teams will play the exact same eight opponents as they will face later this year but at opposite locations. So in 2025, Tennessee will host Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, while traveling to Alabama, Florida, Kentucky and Mississippi State.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.