Former Ohio State football portal target Chaz Coleman is not going through a good time at all with the Tennessee Volunteers this spring
Ohio State was after DE Chaz Coleman hard at one time, and now it looks like missing out on him to Tennessee may not have been the worst thing.
Before the transfer portal opened back in the winter nearly every Ohio State Buckeyes fan had former Penn State EDGE Chaz Coleman as a player they wanted. Coleman ended up going to the SEC to play for the Tennessee Volunteers, and it hasn’t been smooth sailing to this point.
“Knoxville is the furthest away from home he’s ever been, and he’s not handling it well,” Vols insider Tony Basilio said recently. “I was told by a source close to the family that Coleman is a homebody who’s excellent once he locks in on something but sometimes takes a while to get locked in.”
Ohio State may have been a better fit for Chaz Coleman, but the price tag didn’t make sense
According to Basilio, the Vols are paying Coleman around $3.5 million for the 2026 season out of the transfer portal. That’s a big price point for a player who has played nine college games and has eight tackles and one sack.
Coleman has had trouble with missing practice(s), which is a tough look at the college level. Ohio State wouldn’t tolerate such issues for a player so heavily taken care of financially, no matter the reasoning.
“Tennessee doesn’t want to kick him off the team for his recent hiccups but wants to figure out a way to accommodate him,” Basilio went on to say. “They’ve been in contact with family members, and it’s possible one of his siblings could join him soon in Knoxville.”
Tennessee looks like they could be going to extreme measures to make Coleman more comfortable in Knoxville. The Vols could go as far as having a family member come to live with him.
Of course, Columbus is a lot closer to Warren, Ohio than Knoxville is. Coleman may not be dealing with these same issues in Columbus, but it never would have come to that point due to the price point. Coleman went to Tennessee for a large payday to play under former Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, and he wasn’t getting the same payday anywhere else.
At the end of the day, it’s still spring football and Coleman is a 19-year-old adjusting to a new environment. Doing so is never easy for anyone, but definitely not a young man trying to find his way. Either way, the outlook right now is that the Buckeyes missing on Coleman wasn’t the worst thing.
