Just a few months ago Tennessee EDGE was a focus for Ohio State football in the transfer portal when he opted to leave Penn State. 

Flash forward to now, and Tennessee is probably wishing Coleman had chosen Ohio State because it’s been a rocky tenure for the Buckeye State native down in Knoxville.

Coleman missed the majority of spring practices with multiple rumors floating around on why. Then, Coleman didn’t show up on time to summer workouts in Knoxville, and his time as a Vol looks like it could potentially be in its final days. 

Latest Chaz Coleman update is more noise around him potentially ending up in the transfer portal again 

Coleman can’t enter the portal until it opens again in December, so if he doesn’t play with Tennessee this fall it’s likely he’s going to miss a year of college football. 

VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs recently appeared on WNML and gave the latest update on where things may stand.  

“I don’t think it’s lingering (over the team), because he’s not doing anything,” Hubbs said of Coleman’s current status. “He’s not in and out and around (the team), so I don’t think anything’s changed. My viewpoint of Chaz’s impact this fall remains that I don’t see him being a factor with things.

“He’s not doing the things he needs to do to get ready to play this season. I mean, physically, I don’t know how he would be able to play. He’s just not put in any work at this point in time. So to me, nothing has changed there. I don’t have a definitive timeline on anything. But as I said last week, I don’t think it has any negative bearing on this football team that he’s not around. I don’t think it’s even a thought with these guys that are there showing up to work every day — because he’s just not been a part of what they do.”

Hubbs is a well-connected media guy who covers the Vols. With Coleman missing most of the spring and not currently participating in summer workouts, it’s indeed hard to envision him being an impact player for Tennessee this fall. Coleman played just sparingly at Penn State and isn’t going to magically jump into being an SEC difference maker without putting in the work. 

Ohio State is better off with Chad Coleman’s decision 

There’s a world where things are a lot different for Coemamn if he ended up at Ohio State, but there’s also a chance Ohio State would be having the same problems. Ryan Day’s program wouldn’t go for the public ordeal that Tennessee and Coleman are going through, so the Warren native’s decision not to play in Columbus worked out how the Buckeyes needed it to. 

Ohio State ended up bringing in former Alabama EDGE Qua Russaw along with DT James Smith. If Ohio State had gotten Coleman, it’s unlikely they would have landed either of the ex-Crimson Tide players as a packaged deal. We’ve haven’t seen Smith or Russaw play in Columbus this year, but I see them producing more at Ohio State this year than Coleman would have. 

As far as Coleman goes, you still hope he can figure out things and become the college football player he has the potential to be. We’re talking about a player with NFL traits if he can just get there. It doesn’t appear that it’ll be in Tennessee where it happens.