‘I don’t want to talk about that’ – Former Vol who left Tennessee for an SEC rival drops strong response to question about UT
Former Tennessee Vols offensive lineman Lance Heard left Rocky Top for the Kentucky Wildcats this offseason.
After spending two seasons with the Tennessee Vols, offensive lineman Lance Heard left Rocky Top this offseason to join the Kentucky Wildcats.
Heard, who started his career at LSU, is a former five-star recruit.
The former Vol met with reporters on Thursday at Kentucky and he quickly made it clear that he’s not interested in talking about his time at Tennessee.
“I don’t really want to talk about Tennessee,” said Heard when asked to compare the tempo of practice at UT and UK. “That’s like the second Tennessee question. I don’t want to talk about Tennessee.”
You can’t blame Heard for that response — his time at Tennessee is in the past. Regardless of why he left, his only focus now should be on competing at Kentucky.
Why did Lance Heard leave Tennessee?
Heard started every game at left tackle for the Vols in 2025, and he played well. He’s a player that certainly could’ve helped Tennessee in 2026.
But he left for two reasons.
For starters, he was likely going to be asked to move to right tackle so sophomore offensive lineman David Sanders could move to left tackle.
Secondly, his agent reportedly asked for a “gargantuan amount of money” from Tennessee.
“Lance Heard had a really good solid year,” said VolQuest’s Austin Price in January. “His agent asked for a gargantuan amount of money, and Tennessee was not willing to do that. They liked the growth that David Sanders had over the last month and a half of the season, and how he played in the bowl game. And they liked what Jesse Perry brought them at right tackle early in the year. And so Tennessee felt good enough to where they were like, ‘Okay, Lance, we like you at this [price], but we don’t like you at this amount of money.’ And so they decided to part ways. That’s part of the new business model that is college athletics.”
Kentucky is set to visit Knoxville on November 7 for a matchup with the Vols.
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