Near the end of the Music City Bowl on Tuesday evening, ESPN play-by-play announcer Tom Hart cleared up a misconception about the Tennessee Vols and the program’s pursuit of a transfer quarterback this past spring.

Tennessee was in the market for a transfer quarterback in April after Nico Iamaleava transferred to UCLA during the spring transfer window.

There were reports that Tennessee tried to swipe quarterback Luke Altmyer from Illinois (the Vols’ opponent in the Music City Bowl).

“The importance of Illinois retaining its starting quarterback after a strong spring push from Tennessee can’t be understated…After public speculation he might transfer for his final year of eligibility, Altmyer announced in December he would return to the team,” wrote ESPN’s Heather Dinich in April. “He did it again in April, following the drama at Tennessee.”

Altmyer said in June that it was a “difficult decision” to pass on playing in the SEC.

ESPN’s Tom Hart points out that Josh Heupel never spoke directly with Luke Altmyer

Altmyer wasn’t in the transfer portal when Tennessee supposedly made a “strong push” for the veteran quarterback. And that, of course, is tampering.

Hart, however, noted during Tennessee’s 30-28 loss to Illinois in the Music City Bowl that Heupel never spoke directly to Altmyer.

“In this day and age with how the transfer portal works, we talked with Josh Heupel and (Vols offensive coordinator) Joey Halzle about it,” said Hart during the broadcast. “And they said, ‘Let’s be clear about it — We didn’t talk to Luke Altmyer. No one in the football building did.’

“That’s just a layer of bureaucracy of how they do it with the third party doing it (talking to players who aren’t in the portal).”

As Hart noted at the end of his comments, almost all of the conversations between programs and players that aren’t in the portal are taking place via third parties (agents, collectives, boosters, advisers, etc). And sometimes, even though this is hard to believe, coaches aren’t aware that a third party has contacted a player’s representation to gauge if there’s any preliminary interest.

It sounds like that’s the situation that happened with Altmyer and Tennessee. And once Altmyer’s representation indicated that he wasn’t interesting in transferring, the Vols quickly moved on.

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