‘I was about to quit…seriously’ – Former Vols WR Dont’e Thornton details why he almost quit football during his time at Tennessee
Former Tennessee Vols wide receiver Dont’e Thornton revealed that he almost quit football during his first season in Knoxville. Thornton transferred from Oregon to Tennessee following the 2022 season. The Maryland native arrived at Tennessee with high expectations, but he caught just 13 passes for 224 yards and one touchdown in 2023 before suffering a […]
Former Tennessee Vols wide receiver Dont’e Thornton revealed that he almost quit football during his first season in Knoxville.
Thornton transferred from Oregon to Tennessee following the 2022 season.
The Maryland native arrived at Tennessee with high expectations, but he caught just 13 passes for 224 yards and one touchdown in 2023 before suffering a season-ending injury in the Vols’ loss to Missouri.
Dont’e Thornton details why he almost quit football during his first season at Tennessee
Thornton, a fourth-round selection by the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2025 NFL Draft, joined The Burn Factory this past week, and he talked about nearly quitting football during his first season with the Vols.
“When I transferred (from Oregon to Tennessee), I’m thinking, ‘Alright, I’m ready to leave, I’m going to do this last year and I’m going to the league’ — it didn’t work out that way,” said Thornton. “I got to Tennessee. I feel like my junior season (2023) was probably my worst season of my football career. After the second game, I was about to quit — like, seriously. I was thinking about quitting football, taking a year off, and then coming back for my last year.
“After that game, I got hurt going into the next game, so I didn’t play. Had a bye week, I come back and start playing good, and then I got hurt. We were playing Missouri. I had scored a touchdown, but I got hurt on the touchdown, and I was done for the rest of the season. And for me, that was hard — because I was going through a confidence battle early in the season. And then I got through it, I started going good. Now I’m going up. Then I got injured. I dropped all the way back down. I was like damn, all the goals that I had set for myself, I know I can’t accomplish them with that happening late in the season. I knew for sure I wasn’t going to be leaving after my third year. So it put me in a bad place mentally. I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
Thornton noted that changing his goals from individual goals to team-oriented goals helped him get on the right track during his final season at Tennessee.
“I switched my goals from personal, individual-driven goals to team-oriented, centered goals,” explained Thornton. “It was to win, be the best teammate I can be, and then take advantage of every opportunity I’m given — whether that’s in practice, in a game, or in the meeting room. And then the last one being fun, because I started playing football as a little kid because I was having fun with it — not because I was trying to get to the NFL or get all of this money. It was just because I wanted to have fun…once I started doing that, the results got better for me.”
Thornton learned a lesson that every high-level athlete has to learn at some point — success in sports is all about the day-to-day process. It’s winning each rep. It’s doing what’s best for the team, and it’s continuing to compete even when you aren’t receiving the opportunities you think you deserve. It’s staying dedicated to the process without worrying about results.
It doesn’t matter how talented you are — if you’re more worried about results than the process, you’re not going to reach your potential.
Fortunately for Thornton, he learned that lesson before it was too late. And now he’s set to enter his rookie season with the Raiders as a starting wide receiver.
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